Yago Fernandez Vilar: 'Spanish rugby is growing and we’re proving it'

It was great to see Spain at Cape Town Stadium on Friday night, taking in the sights and sounds of the World Rugby U20 Championship final convincingly won by England. They certainly enjoyed their first-ever campaign at the tournament and the excellent news for them is that they will compete in next year’s edition following the remarkable exploits of Yago Fernandez Vilar and co earlier in the day 15kms out the road in Athlone.

The script was for seasoned Championship participants Fiji to win the relegation play-off and send the Spanish back down to the Trophy, the competition they won last year in Kenya to secure their 2024 ticket for South Africa.

However, it sensationally wound up with the Fijians getting relegated following their 24-19 93rd-minute sudden loss to the minnow Europeans. The Islanders appeared to have taken a grip on proceedings in the winter weather conditions when going 19-5 up 12 minutes into the second half.

Spain, though, soon hit back with a converted Jokin Zolezzi try, levelled with a converted 71st-minute score from Nicolas Moleti and despite spurning a late normal time penalty chance by kicking to the corner and not at the posts, they demonstrated tremendous grit to grab the victory through David Gallego’s try three minutes into the second period of extra time. Cue bedlam.

Fernandez Vilar unfortunately wasn’t part of the on-pitch pandemonium. He was still in the Athlone Stadium medical room being treated for his 51st-minute concussion when the match ended.

Thankfully, he was back on his feet and enjoying the feeling of great achievement when RugbyPass caught up with him at Cape Town Stadium during the Championship final interval later that evening.

“It’s unreal for us,” he enthused. “It has been a really tough few months for us because we probably haven’t had the preparation we needed for this. We knew we were coming here as a pretty small team but we also knew we were able to play rugby and we proved that we deserved to be here.

“It was unreal to show it today. We never gave up and that’s probably something that we as Spanish people always do, we never give up, and yeah, really happy to show it on the pitch.

"Staying up is really important. We have seen with our first team as well beating Tonga. Spanish rugby is growing and we’re proving it. We don’t really care about what people say, we just prove it on the pitch.”

The end-game versus Fiji played out with Fernandez Vilar monitoring developments on his phone underneath the main stand. “It was crazy. I was actually watching it from the medic room because I got concussed.

“But yeah, it was crazy. I have never seen it [sudden death] before. I was on my phone, I was very nervous. I didn’t know how to react. I wasn’t able to move a lot because I was strapped but yeah, very happy about it.”

A veteran of the 2023 Trophy triumph, Fernandez Vilar won’t be back in 2025 as he will be overage but he reckoned about “15 or so” of the 2024 squad will be eligible and he is delighted that they have the opportunity to build on what the Spanish have achieved.

He loved his own U20s development. “It’s class. As you can see here with the people, it’s people playing at the highest level possible, people playing the Premiership, people playing in the Top 14. It’s just unreal to get into a tournament with the best U20s teams in the world.”

Fernandez Vilar said his piece in excellent English, the Barcelona native’s fluency the legacy of spending the last three years in Dublin. “I play for Terenure College,” explained the midfielder in an accent that wouldn’t have sounded out of the place if he was representing Ireland.

“I studied. I started when I was U18s. I was just flying over for camps and stuff and I have been going backwards and forwards for the last three years and here I am.

"I went over to Dublin for a year when I was in third year to study there. I loved it and then I got a scholarship, so I decided to stay and I have been there since. I’m from Barcelona, I grew up there.”