Houston SaberCats added Uruguay No.8 Alejandro Nieto for the 2019 Major League Rugby season. Alejandro is 6’1″, 238 lbs., and turns 31-years-old tomorrow.
He is from Montevideo, Uruguay and attended St. Catherine’s School and Instituto Crandon. He also attended Universidad de La Empresa.
Alejandro plays for Champagnat Rugby Club in Montevideo and also is a National Team player.
This year was the 10th Anniversary of World Rugby merging Under-19s and Under-21s into an Under-20s competition. In 2008, he was on the Uruguay World Rugby Trophy squad that won the competition with wins over Korea, Jamaica, Georgia, and Chile.
Since 2012, Alejandro has been a member of the Uruguay Rugby National Team. He made his debut against Argentina in Santiago, Chile on May 20, 2012 and played the last of his 64 matches against Romania in Bucharest on November 24, 2018. He started 56 of these matches and played in the 2015 Rugby World Cup, the Americas Rugby Championship, the Consur (later Sudamerica Championships and the Nations Cup. He also played for Uruguay A in the 2018 Americas Pacific Challenge.
Alejandro had a whirlwind 2018 that began with playing the Houston SaberCats in January, and prevailing over Canada to become the Americas 2 representative to the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan. Uruguay will be in Pool D along with Australia, Fiji, Georgia, and Wales. The team also claimed victories over Namibia, Russia, and Spain.
Leading up to the November tests was the Americas Rugby Championship where the National team played as Uruguay A in the Americas Pacific Challenge and prior to the tests was a match against PRO14 Rugby’s Cardiff Blues.
Alejandro is an experienced international forward, who will be an asset to the Houston SaberCats in 2019.
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