Tough start as Italy and Tonga warm up for Cup
ITALY prop Paul Vaughan will be in the hands of strength and conditioning staff this week in a bid to recover from a cork in time for his side’s World Cup opener against Ireland on Sunday.
The Dragons NRL star is the most serious concern of largely minor bumps and bruises following a 16-6 loss to Tonga in a warm-up game in Innisfail on Friday night.
Vaughan told the Cairns Post his match fitness was more concerning than his ailment in a “much-needed” warm-up game for the Azzurri.
“It wasn’t too bad. I only played about 35 to 40 minutes, but it was good to have a hitout,” he said.
“I haven’t done a lot since the last game I played in PNG.
“I think the boys were a little bit rusty there, but we’ve got a bit to improve on so we’ll get into training this week and prepare the best we can for the upcoming game.
“I think just our formations will probably be the biggest things for us. If we can just get the boys together, that 9, 7 and 6 and get our combinations together, we’ll be better.”
Italy’s toughness against Tonga’s behemoths was a feature of the low-scoring trial – a positive sign before facing an Irish pack with plenty of mongrel.
“Everyone says they’ve got a pretty good team so we’re looking forward to going up against them and challenging them in the forwards,” Vaughan said. “We won’t go in completely blind, we’ll do some video and see how they look and gauge the game plan off that.”
Star fullback James Tedesco said he liked what he saw from a strong fullback and hoped to work on his combination with Terry Campese this week to exploit their hard work.
“It’s a solid forward pack that can play big minutes too, so that will definitely help us and we know it’s hard in the heat up here and I think that experience in the forward pack will go a long way to us winning games,” he said.
“We have Terry Campese, an experienced half in the side, and he led the side around well the other night for 20 minutes and I’m looking forward to our game on Sunday.”
The team had some down time at the Innisfail Cup on Saturday before arriving in Cairns yesterday.
Italy will train at West Barlow Park today.
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