{"id":419402,"date":"2026-01-17T16:11:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T16:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/419402\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T16:11:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T16:11:14","slug":"heavy-south-african-contingent-on-cobras-roster-for-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/419402\/","title":{"rendered":"Heavy South African Contingent on Cobras Roster for 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A 40-man Cobras roster has been finalized to prepare for Super Rugby Americas (SRA) 2026. Os Cobras will play home matches in S\u00e3o Paulo in 2026 and the megacity will be the base for the team coached by New Zealander Josh Reeves.<\/p>\n<p>30 of the 40 members of the roster are either Brazilian or eligible to play for Brazil. There is a familiar list of names from the 2025 team that went winless all season. 2025 captain Cleber Dias and vice-captain Lorenzo Massari Temer are both back for SRA 2026.<\/p>\n<p>The trio of Rodolfo Martins, Felipe Gon\u00e7alves and Lucas Spago are all missing due to injuries Any or all of them could return to the roster at any time. They are all training with the team while they overcome their repsctive injuries.<\/p>\n<p>The ten players not eligible to play for Brazil include six South Africans and four Argentines. The South Africans are headlined by Blitzbok Rugby Sevens star, Rosko Specman who will be playing either wing or fullback. He is a former Olympian medalist.<\/p>\n<p>Additional South African names are scrum-halves Zinedine Booysen and Ashwin Cox, hooker Kegan Smit second-rower Mogomotsi Mokunyane, and winger Tasriq Mynhardt.<\/p>\n<p>Argentine involvement includes two Tucum\u00e1n props in\u00a0Lautaro Facundo and Facundo Moreno. The latter of the two is the brother of former Cobras front-rower, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.americasrugbynews.com\/2025\/12\/24\/tarucas-roster-for-super-rugby-americas-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Francisco Moreno who now plays for Los Tarucas<\/a>.,Fly half Juli\u00e1n Leszczynski is back in South America from Europe while hooker Santiago Bonavento arrives from Buenos Aires.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"tie-appear alignnone wp-image-102976 \" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/logo-cobras-blue-sra-thumbnail-2024.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"32\" height=\"32\"  \/>COBRAS ROSTER \u2013 SRA 2026<\/p>\n<p>PROP<br \/>Nicolas Alkmin Ferreira<br \/>Brendon Alves<br \/>Santiago Bonavento (Argentina)<br \/>Lautaro Facundo Fanlo (Argentina)<br \/>Jo\u00e3o Guilherme Arraez<br \/>Davi Montejano<br \/>Facundo Moreno (Argentina)<br \/>Henrique Ribeiro Ferreira<br \/>Jo\u00e3o Lucas Marino de Souza<br \/>T\u00falio de Souza de Oliveira<\/p>\n<p>HOOKER<br \/>Kegan Smit (South Africa)<br \/>Nicholas Sydorowitz (USA)<br \/>Endy Willian Pinheiro<\/p>\n<p>SECOND-ROW<br \/>Helder Bryan Souza L\u00facio<br \/>Gabriel de Souza Oliveira<br \/>Mogomotsi Mokunyane (South Africa)<br \/>Maiki Lemes dos Santos<\/p>\n<p>FLANKER<br \/>Pedro Henrique Soares Aparecido<br \/>Matheus de Souza Claudio<br \/>Cleber Dias<br \/>Renato Santos da Silva<\/p>\n<p>N8<br \/>Andr\u00e9 Arruda<br \/>Adrio de Melo<\/p>\n<p>SCRUM-HALF<br \/>Zinedine Booysen (South Africa)<br \/>Ashwin Cox (South Africa)<br \/>Gustavo Gobeti Bilecki<\/p>\n<p>FLY HALF<br \/>Jo\u00e3o do Amaral<br \/>Juli\u00e1n Leszczynski (Argentina)<\/p>\n<p>CENTER<br \/>Robson Alves Morais<br \/>Lorenzo Massari Temer<br \/>Aramis Amador Pellizer Victorica Padilla<br \/>Robert Ten\u00f3rio<\/p>\n<p>WING<br \/>Daniel Lima<br \/>Sergio Luna<br \/>Widson Menezes do Nascimento<br \/>Tasriq Mynhardt (South Africa)<br \/>Rosko Specman (South Africa)<\/p>\n<p>FULLBACK<br \/>Nicolas de Azevedo Ribeiro<br \/>Jo\u00e3o Gabriel Fonseca Ribeiro<br \/>Lucas Tranquez<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 40-man Cobras roster has been finalized to prepare for Super Rugby Americas (SRA) 2026. Os Cobras will&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85,219276],"class_list":{"0":"post-419402","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-super-rugby-americas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}