{"id":249081,"date":"2026-01-21T01:50:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T01:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/249081\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T01:50:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T01:50:07","slug":"force-add-more-argentine-flavour-with-addition-of-hooker-oviedo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/249081\/","title":{"rendered":"Force add more Argentine flavour with addition of hooker Oviedo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"css-2425b0\">The Western Force is excited to<br \/>\nconfirm the addition of Argentine hooker Leonel Oviedo to the 2026 Swyftx Super<br \/>\nRugby Pacific squad on an injury cover contract.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Oviedo arrived in Perth last week and has already<br \/>\ncommenced training with his new team-mates, including countrymen Franco Molina<br \/>\nand Agustin Moyano.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">The 27-year-old front-rower joins from Dogos XV Cordoba,<br \/>\nthe Argentine club also previously home to Molina and Moyano. Oviedo scored<br \/>\nseven tries in 16 appearances for Dogos in the 2025 Super Rugby Americas season<br \/>\nas they finished runners-up.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/westernforce.rugby\/2026-western-force-fan-day\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" class=\"css-tm001h\">Meet the Force players at the Club&#8217;s Fan Day at Force HQ on Saturday 31 January<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Oviedo is uncapped at international level but trained<br \/>\nwith Felipe Contepomi\u2019s Los Pumas squad in 2024 and played for the Argentina XV<br \/>\nin two games last November against Bristol and Munster.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">The hooker has previous overseas experience with in<br \/>\nUruguay with Penarol (2023-2024) plus France for Ceret (Federale 1, 2021-2022),<br \/>\nCarqueiranne-Hyeres (Nationale, 2022) and Provence Rugby (Pro D2, 2022 and<br \/>\n2023).<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Force head coach Simon Cron said: \u201cWe\u2019ve been on the hunt<br \/>\nfor another hooker to add to our depth in that critical position.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">\u201cPrior to reaching out to Felipe, we canvassed Australian<br \/>\nteams and agents but couldn\u2019t get someone who was SRP ready. It\u2019s not a<br \/>\nposition you want to put someone who is not quite ready yet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">\u201cLeo is ready, firing and more importantly fits our team<br \/>\nand the culture we are building. We are lucky we have been able to entice a lot<br \/>\nof Australian players back from overseas so we are well inside the Rugby<br \/>\nAustralia rules for foreign players.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">\u201cHe brings a very big strong presence at hooker. At 118<br \/>\nkilograms, that\u2019ll help stabilise the middle of our scrum.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">\u201cWith Nic Dolly coming back from injury, this provides a<br \/>\nbit of breathing space for him to come back fully fit and ready.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">\u201cIt\u2019ll also increase our training intensity come<br \/>\nset-piece time and contact zone which will help all of our players to continue<br \/>\ngrow. He\u2019s a really good addition for us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Oviedo said he was excited to join the Club and link up<br \/>\nwith his Argentine compatriots.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">\u201cI\u2019m happy to be here to join the Force,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m<br \/>\nexcited to contribute with the team.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">\u201cPerth is a great place and I\u2019m excited to play here and<br \/>\nalongside Agustin and Franco too.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ticketmaster.com.au\/western-force-tickets\/artist\/1087685\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" class=\"css-tm001h\">Western Force Memberships and tickets are on sale for the<br \/>\n2026 Swyftx Super Rugby Pacific season NOW via Ticketmaster.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Leonel Oviedo<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">DOB: 16\/2\/1998<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Height: 186cm<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Position: Hooker<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">International career history<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Argentina XV (2 caps, 2025- )<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Career history<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Dogos XV Cordoba (2024-2025)<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Penarol (2023-2024)<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Provence Rugby (2022 &amp; 2023)<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Carqueiranne-Hyeres (2022 &amp; 2023)<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Ceret Sportif (2021-2022)<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Cordoba Athletic Club (2020-2021)<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Dogos XV (2019-2020)<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-2425b0\">Jaguares XV (2018-2019)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Western Force is excited to confirm the addition of Argentine hooker Leonel Oviedo to the 2026 Swyftx&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105,28899],"class_list":{"0":"post-249081","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-western-force"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}