The third edition of the CONSUR Cross Border tournament continues in South America this weekend with three of Argentina's leading provincial sides and Uruguay in action in the Plata zone.

Uruguay will be looking for a first victory when they take on Santa Fe on Saturday, having lost 22-11 to Rosario last weekend, fielding a team with a number of graduates from their Under 20 team over the last two years.

In the other Plata zone match, Rosario will face Córdoba, the Argentinean Provincial champions who emphatically beat Santa Fe 45-7 on day one with Agustín Simó scoring two of his side's seven tries.

"The main objective of the IRB and CONSUR for this Cross Border tournament is to support the Uruguay and Chile national teams in High Performance competitions," explained Hernan Rouco Oliva, the IRB's Regional General Manager for South America.

"This is achieved with the help of the UAR through the involvement of their best Argentinean provinces, which also enjoy the benefits of a great level of competition. I have no doubt that competitions like these are key to ensure the level of rugby in these countries keeps improving.

Huge opportunity

"This is the third consecutive year for this kind of CONSUR Cross Border and we expect it to be the most successful one. We are also able to offer an attractive prize with the champions to play one or two games in South Africa in November.

"This is a huge opportunity and one which highlights the progress being made with the financial backing and support of the International Rugby Board and CONSUR. We are also looking to expand the Cross Border tournaments next year to include Brazil and Paraguay along with two other provinces."

The final round of pool matches in this zone will take place on 13 March when Córdoba play Uruguay and Rosario meet Santa Fe with the side finishing top to meet the winner of the Pacific zone.

The Pacific zone was to mirror the match days of the Plata zone, but the devastating earthquake that hit Chile last weekend has resulted in the matches being moved from Santiago to Mendoza in Argentina.

A new date is yet to be arranged for the Chile v Mendoza match cancelled last weekend in the aftermath of the earthquake, but the two other rounds will take place on 12 and 14 March.

Tucumán - who beat Salta 24-13 in their opening match with Federico Mentz kicking all the points - will face Mendoza, while Chile face Salta on Friday 12. Two days later Chile will play Tucumán and Mendoza tackle Salta.

For more information on the tournament visit www.consur.org (español)