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Americas Pacific Challenge
Most recent season or competition:; 2021 World Rugby Americas Pacific Challenge
Sport	Rugby Union
First season	2016
Countries	Argentina; Brazil; Chile; Paraguay; United States; Uruguay;
Most recent; champion(s)	Argentina XV (2021)
Most titles	Argentina XV (3)

The Americas Pacific Challenge (APC) is a rugby union tournament funded by World Rugby ^[1] that serves as a development competition for Americas and Pacific island nations. It provides a way to prepare players for participation with their senior national men's teams during international tests ^[2] and in the Rugby World Cup qualification cycle.^[3]

The competition has been hosted by the Uruguayan Rugby Union since 2016, with all games played in Montevideo.^[1] Prior to its creation, two teams from the Americas had played in the Pacific Challenge, hosted by Fiji in 2015.^[4] This was reversed in 2016 with two Pacific Island teams joining the inaugural APC ^[5] which effectively replaced the previous format of the Americas Rugby Championship.^[6]

History

The APC was first contested in October 2016 by the national 'A' teams of Argentina, Canada, Fiji, Samoa, Uruguay and United States.^[7] Tonga took the place of the Fijian team for the 2017 competition,^[8] and retained that place in 2018.^[9]

The competition had a two-year hiatus which encompassed the 2019 Rugby World Cup and a 2020 season disrupted by impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Teams from Brazil, Chile and Paraguay took part for the first time in the 2021 Challenge, but the Pacific Islands did not participate due to difficulties with COVID-19 travel logistics.^[10]

Format

The Americas Pacific Challenge uses a split pool format wherein the six competing teams are divided into two pools of three.^[11] Each team plays one match against each of the teams in the opposite pool.^[11] The tournament's winner is decided based upon the number of points accumulated from each match.^[11]

Participating teams

The final placings of all teams for each year are recorded in the table below as numbers (where 1 denotes first place, 2 denotes second, etc). The host nation's placing is shown in bold. A dash (–) is recorded in the year column if a team did not compete at a tournament.

	2016	2017	2018	2021	Years played
North America
Canada A	6	6	5	–	3
USA Selects	5	2	6	5	4
South America
Argentina XV	1	1	2	1	4
Brazil A	–	–	–	3	1
Chile A	–	–	–	2	1
Paraguay A	–	–	–	6	1
Uruguay A	4	5	3	4	4
Pacific teams
Fiji Warriors	2	–	–	–	1
Samoa A	3	4	1	–	3
Tonga A	–	3	4	–	2
Number of teams All time total: 10	6	6	6	6	4 Editions

Winners

Year	# of Teams	Winner	Runner-up	Venue
2016	6	Argentina XV	Fiji Warriors	Estadio Charrúa, Montevideo
2017	6	Argentina XV	USA Selects	Estadio Charrúa, Montevideo
2018	6	Samoa A	Argentina XV	Estadio Charrúa, Montevideo
2021	6	Argentina XV	Chile A	Estadio Charrúa, Montevideo