Sport Rugby union President Luis Gradín Website urba.org.ar | Unión Argentina de Rugby affiliation 1995 Men's coach Rafael Madero | |
Founded 1995; 22 years ago (1995) | ||
This article is about a Rugby organization. URBA can also refer to the URBA mass transport system.
Contents
The Buenos Aires Rugby Union (Spanish: Unión de Rugby de Buenos Aires), usually referred as URBA, is the Argentine governing body that organises and controls the rugby union in the Buenos Aires Province, as well as its representative team for the Campeonato Argentino of Provinces of Argentina organised by the Unión Argentina de Rugby.
The union only deals with clubs from the city of Buenos Aires and part of the Buenos Aires Province, the remaining clubs from Buenos Aires province are distributed amongst four other provincial unions: Unión de Rugby del Oeste de Buenos Aires in the west, Unión de Rugby del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires in the centre, Unión de Rugby de Mar del Plata in the east, and Unión de Rugby del Sur in the south.
URBA is the most powerful of the provincial organisations of Argentina, providing more than half of the players of the Argentina national rugby union team. It also organises the Torneo de la URBA, the strongest club competition in Argentina.
History
The precursor of both the Unión Argentina de Rugby and today's Unión de Rugby de Buenos Aires, the "River Plate Rugby Union", was founded in Buenos Aires, in 1899, by four clubs: Buenos Aires FC, Belgrano and Lomas from Buenos Aires, and Club Atlético from Rosario.
That same year, the union organized the first edition of the Buenos Aires' inter-club competition that is known today as Torneo de la URBA. The first ever winner was Lomas.
In 1951, the change of name to Unión Argentina de Rugby, was after a request by the Argentine Olympic committee and it continued at the same time to work as local federation of Buenos Aires clubs, and national federation, recognized by International Rugby Board.
In 1995, the two functions were split, and the URBA were established as provincial union of the city of Buenos Aires and the nearest town, like San Isidro and La Plata, while the remaining part of the Buenos Aires Province (Mar del Plata, Tandil etc) is under different provincial unions.
Today the URBA is Argentina's most powerful provincial union and the Torneo de la URBA the strongest club competition in the country, with 82 clubs playing in 4 divisions.
Union team
The Buenos Aires team -nicknamed Las Águilas (The Eagles)- is the most successful within the provincial teams in Argentina, having won 34 Campeonato Argentino titles over 51 played.
Titles
International
The URBA team has also played several international friendly matches against national teams, of which the following are the most important results of the last years: