The nickname Los Teros refers to the national bird of Uruguay, the southern lapwing (Vanellus chilensis).

Following their debut match, they returned to competition in the Pan American Games, first against the more experienced Argentina, resulting in a 0–62 loss.

In 1960, Uruguay faced for the first time one of the powers of the Northern Hemisphere rugby, France XV, losing by 0–61 in Montevideo during a South American tour.

However, the next game against Argentina, two years later in 1979, Uruguay came close to defeating the Pumas, going down by just three points, the final score being 19 to 16.

Uruguay's qualification for the 2007 World Cup started in Americas Round 3a, where they were grouped with Argentina and Chile.

Uruguay played Portugal in the repechage over two legs — losing the first in Lisbon and winning the second in Montevideo — but lost on aggregate points and failed to qualify.

Uruguay had won the 2009 South American Rugby Championship "A" by defeating Brazil and Chile at the Estadio Charrúa.

In March 2014, Uruguay faced the United States in a NACRA-CONSUR playoff for the last Americas qualification spot.

Uruguay then moved to the repechage, where it defeated Hong Kong 28–3 at the Estadio Charrúa, to face Russia for the 20th and final spot at the 2015 Rugby World Cup.

Uruguay qualified for the 2015 Rugby World Cup by defeating Russia by an aggregate score of 57–49 in the two-game series, winning the second game at home 36–27 in front of 14,000 fans at the Charrua Stadium.

[2] Uruguay claimed three wins and two losses at the 2016 Americas Rugby Championship, but ranked fourth out of six because they only scored two bonus points.

[3][4] On 30 October 2019, nightclub in southwestern Japan filed criminal complaint against players from the Uruguay team for 2019 Rugby World Cup for allegedly damaging property.

Uruguay has lost all official matches versus Argentina, but has a winning record against their other South American rivals such as Chile, Paraguay, and Brazil.

They played Chile for the fiftieth time during the 2023 Rugby World Cup warm-up matches, winning 26–25.

Below is table of the representative rugby matches played by a Uruguay national XV at test level up until 23 November 2024.