Argentinian winger Manuel ‘Pantera’ Montero played in Major League Rugby during the 2021 season. He represented the Toronto Arrows for his entire MLR career.

Hailing from Adrogué, a suburb of Buenos Aires, Montero played his club rugby with Club Pucará in the Argentinian domestic URBA competition, where he played multiple stints between 2011-2019. He played basketball in his youth but switched to rugby where he excelled, quickly being named to the Argentina U20 squad in 2010, and at the U20s World Cup in 2011. He represented the Argentina Sevens side in the 2011/12 World Rugby Sevens Series before earning his full international test debut with Los Pumas against Uruguay in 2012, and earned 27 caps for Argentina between then and 2017, starting 22 times and scoring 16 tries. Montero played with Argentina’s lone Super Rugby club, the Jaguares, between 2016-2017, and also played in SLAR for Paraguay’s Olímpia Lions in 2020, earning his SLAR debut before the COVID-19 pandemic cancelled the season that year.

Montero joined the Toronto Arrows ahead of their difficult 2021 season where they spent the entire season playing out of Rugby ATL’s facilities in Georgia due to border restrictions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. He earned 10 appearances (8 starts) for the Arrows and proved a lethal scorer, with 7 tries in that time including the first MLR hattrick in team history against New York. His 7 tries that season tied him for the Toronto Arrows single season record with fellow Argentine Joaquín Tuculet (also set in 2021) and former Arrows Captain Dan Moor (set in 2019),

achievements

• Toronto Arrows Single Season Tries Scored Record (7) – 2021