Over the last couple of years, Peruvian rugby has made spectacular progress at grass roots level thanks to the introduction of World Rugby’s Get Into Rugby programme and the hard work of the pro-active Federación Peruana de Rugby.

Founded in 1996, the FPR grew very slowly and by 2013 only six clubs, four universities and a couple of schools were involved in the game.

Two years on, however, and the numbers have increased to a staggering 35 clubs, 22 universities – 12 in the capital city of Lima and 10 in the provinces – and leagues are played in the north and south of the country. In all, 2,000 adult players compete regularly in the country.

Thanks to World Rugby’s Get Into Rugby programme some 29,000 children in Peru were introduced to the game in 2015 and the FPR is hopeful that this figure will continue to increase in the months ahead.

To satisfy the growing demand regular sports festivals and active programmes featuring rugby are held at national and private schools in six of the country’s provinces.

Leading the charge is former scrum-half and captain of Los Tumis at both 15s and sevens, Maser Madueño Posth, who has held the position of FPR chairman since February 2013.

Dynamic leadership

“Sports in my country are generally not well organised but with a positive structure and good planning, you can get things done. If you get involved, if you generate the right associations, it can be very positive,” Posth explained.

“In the near future, the FPR goal is to get rugby as part of the school curriculum, and to have a competitive national schools and a competitive university tournament. With this in place, our national teams will be naturally more competitive.”

World Rugby’s General Manager for Development Morgan Buckley was certainly impressed by what he saw on a visit to the country late last year.

“The presentation from Maser on the strategy to grow the game in Peru is a great example of a small union with dynamic leadership,” Buckley said. “They showed great examples of promoting the true values of rugby and the game. They managed to get the South American B Championship shown live on local television to an audience of 300,000 which was superb.”

Unlike most sports in Peru rugby is not solely reliant on government funding – only 60 per cent of the $500,000 annual budget comes from the Peruvian Institute of Sport – and live coverage of the South American B Championship has led to even more enquiries from potential sponsors.

“I was really impressed with my visit,” added Buckley. “I always thought there was potential but now seeing it happening is great. We’ve always had big unions such as Argentina, Chile, Uruguay leading the way in the region. Yet there are many good stories of growth in other nations such as Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Paraguay and Brazil; countries that are not that well known. All of this is wonderful for rugby.”