Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, is many different things to different people. Famed for art deco buildings, colonial architecture, and wearing its Latin heart on its sleeve, it’s also the best place to get a steak in South America. But the home city of Pablo Lemoine could also become a hotbed of rugby, if only it gets the chance.

Months after Canada’s men’s side failed to make it ten Rugby World Cup appearances in a row, the women’s side put the world champion Black Ferns to the sword. It summed up a tumultuous time for rugby in the country, where you just never know what might happen next.

Almost three decades after just five nations competed on Australia’s Gold Coast in the first Touch World Cup, England changed the game in Nottingham. Thirty-nine countries, 23 pitches, and thousands of players. ‘Non-contact’ rugby has never looked so good. 

Despite their raw talent, few believe that Fiji could ever win a rugby world cup. But now, driven by an Aussie named Mick, the flying Fijians are finally beginning to think the impossible might just be possible.

Amid the deciduous woods of Occitanie in southern France you can find butcher’s-broom, a plant that transformed the lives of the people in Castres, bringing with it not only a homeopathic remedy, but also helping a small-town rugby club to become the best in the country.

The first-ever Olympic rugby tournament wasn’t supposed to be won by the Americans, just as they weren’t supposed to win the inaugural women’s Rugby World Cup. But they did. And then? Pipe bombs, Dan Lyle, MLR, expelled champions, bankruptcy, sevens success, fifteens failure, and two Rugby World Cup bids. This is American rugby. It’s anything and everything, but never dull.

The story of Ikeys v Maties goes far beyond your typical student rugby rivalry. Antisemitism, apartheid, blue-chip donors and the presence of many future Springboks have made this grudge match one of South Africa’s most notorious.

At the crossroads between Europe and Asia, where history’s most powerful empires fought their wars and the world’s first grapevines were cultivated, Georgia are challenging rugby’s world order, powered by 130kg props and the spirit of a three-century-old game of their own.

Some of the children didn’t know where they’d come from, the names of their parents, or how they’d ended up at the railway station, but through rugby, they’d not only find food, but also education, and maybe even international rugby.

When the British & Irish Lions came to Brazil in the 1930s, it should have kickstarted rugby in the Portuguese-speaking nation. Instead, the Second World War broke out and they’ve been playing catch up ever since.

On the grounds of the former Mohawk Institute, where colonists would force Indigenous youth to speak another language, change their clothes, shave their hair and suffer unimaginable cruelties, many ending in death, a truly remarkable rugby session took place. 

Jutting out from the southernmost tip of Spain, the unreservedly British Gibraltar shares many things with its mother land, not least a passion for rugby. Their ground would be the envy of international sides, if only they got to showcase it on the global scene. Instead, they find themselves in rugby’s no-man’s land.

In Estonia, just south of Finland, next door to Russia, Rugby World Cup winner Graham Smith ponders thirty years of coaching. For a slaughterman who almost had to literally fight off the bailiffs, the Black Country boy has done well.

For decades, the Hong Kong Sevens has been the epicentre of rugby in the region, but now, with the support of the world’s most famous tournament for the abridged game, the South China Tigers are changing the landscape.

Think of Syria, and some think of civil war, or perhaps the four million people fleeing the country fearing for their lives. Others, though, have a different vision. Of lemon trees, jasmine, fountains... ... and rugby.

On a cluster of Caribbean islands off the coast of Venezuela, the first roots of rugby union are beginning to emerge in a country famed for its spice. With the nation’s strongest man in the line-up, Grenada have made a quiet entrance into the world of rugby.

To some Tonga is seen only as an island paradise. To others, it’s a country caught up in a global drugs trade, with an economy that relies on overseas relatives, and is being forced to accept a growing influx of convicted criminals. To put it another way, losing a rugby match 102-0 to the All Blacks is the least of its worries.

“In Islamic society, people normally think of ladies in general as having to stay at home and take care of their families, so whenever men see women playing these sports, they are afraid to see us as fearless.”

At a tournament funded by a company with a $2.43 trillion market cap, rugby was showcased to a crowd of 6,000 in Saudi Arabia. They’ve also relaunched their rugby federation and put a sevens side into the Arab Games for the first time. In a country that divides opinion, so often going big on the sporting front, rugby is quietly taking some small steps in development.

At the heart of China’s rugby ambitions on the island of Hainan in the South China Sea, there’s an obvious outsider. The height of his playing CV reads Edinburgh Accies and Murrayfield Wanderers but this Scotsman, aged just 35, is the driving force behind China’s Olympic challenge at Tokyo 2020. Euan Mackintosh is the most influential Scottish coach you’ve never heard of.