McLean: Belief we showed against Boks will be the key
BRENDAN GALLAGHER meets the Italy centre looking for a repeat of his country’s autumn win
inning can occasionally mess a team up. No really. Being a “good winner” is a real skill and, alas, the Italian rugby side hasn’t had much practice.
I’m not referring to being gracious and generous in victory, Italy are good in that respect. Having suffered so many defeats themselves they appreciate full well how a vanquished team are feeling. No, I’m referring to the ability to park a wonderful and much-praised victory on the top shelf and produce the same hunger and intensity again.
Over the decades, Italy have been very poor at that. Only once in 17 years in the Six Nations – in 2007 – have Italy backed up one famous triumph with another win in their next game. Never have they built that momentum that winning regularly can bring.
Which brings us to Luke McLean, Italy’s experienced utility back who has clocked up 84 caps despite still being only 29, and his decidedly mixed reactions over their historic win over South Africa in the autumn.
“It was a massive, well deserved breakthrough win for us,” says McLean, “and ranks right at the top of any Italy performance and win I’ve ever been involved with. Even sides like Wales struggle badly for wins against these guys!
“But that made it disappointing when we failed to back it up seven days later when we lost to Tonga. And that’s not to diminish an outstanding performance from Tonga. We had the chance to put two quality performances together on the trot and blew it. Hopefully, it was a big lesson for the group, we must learn how to handle victory as well as defeat.
“Let’s be honest, as underdogs in the vast majority of games we play Italy don’t have that much experience of handling big emotional wins and then getting our feet straight back on the ground. It’s part of the learning curve we are on.
“Bigger nations, stronger teams, become very good at taking victory in their stride, ‘going again’ seven days later.”
Clearly one of the things Italy must do is replicate their needle-sharp preparation in the week leading into the South Africa game and they need look no further to achieve that than at their own Federation Facebook page where a candid behind the scenes documentary of that week has been posted. There, from the very start of the week, you see a squad walking tall and sensing victory despite coming off a 68-10 mauling against New Zealand the previous week
“We got heavily beaten by New Zealand but our performance actually was not that bad and our spirit was very good,” recalls McLean. “We are a resilient group and immediately we started thinking about South Africa. Everybody dialled in and there was belief – not just hope – that we would – not could – beat South Africa.
“Full credit has to go to Conor O’Shea, Mike Catt and the rest of the coaching staff. I’ve been around for a while, to put it politely, and we have played the big SANZAR countries with the pretty conservative gameplan of ‘let’s keep this as close as we can for an hour and see if we can’t get them to panic and under-perform’.
“In many ways that’s fair enough and we’ve had our moments – we ran Australia very close a few years ago – but from day one before the South Africa match Conor and Cattie drilled into us how we were going to take the game to South Africa at all times and beat them.
“We weren’t going to frustrate the Boks into playing poorly, Italy were going out to win the game by playing well.
“That approach can be pretty contagious. By the Saturday morning everybody in our squad genuinely believed that if we played at our best we’d win. Now we need to bottle that and produce it for five games in a row in the Six Nations.
“So this Six Nations we want to put our best foot forward and produce a string of quality performances. Do that and with the bit of fortune you always need we can get a couple of results. Let’s do ourselves justice, let’s prepare like we did against South Africa, let’s execute and give ourselves a chance every week.”
McLean, Australian-born and reared but with Italian grandparents, moved to Italy to discover his extended family a decade ago. He played in an Australia side alongside Quade Cooper and David Pocock that won the U19 World Cup and had offers with Australian Super 14 franchises but the family’s Italian roots were strong and that was the pathway he chose.
In that respect McLean is the very opposite of the so-called ‘project player’. He hadn’t been rejected back home or read the tea leaves and decided he had no chance – in fact the future in Australia was reasonably bright – while over in Italy there were no guarantees. Just an adventure.
During his time with Italy McLean has played – with some regularity – in every position behind the scrum except scrum-half but these days appears to have settled at 12 although he also provides cover at full-back. At various times he’s also been a goal-kicker and I, for one, was staggered at that figure of 84 caps already won seemingly in no time.
“It can be tough, there are a huge number of defeats in my career – I am not going to waste time counting up exactly how many – but I don’t regret a moment and I’m still ambitious for the future. I’m very hungry and there is a fresh energy with the arrival of Conor and I want to be part of his plans.
“The thrill of pulling on the shirt is still there and I love the closeness of battling against the odds with a close group of friends. It has its rewards. What I do want to see before my days are over is an Italian backline do itself justice and cause some damage because I know we have it in us.”
McLean has a point although getting the best players on the field, as ever remains a problem. This year they will be without Glasgow wing Leonardo Sarto and, alas, Luca Morisi – who scored two tries and made a third at Twickenham two years ago – is again struggling after more knee surgery.
Both will be badly missed but Michele Campagnaro shows signs of returning to his best and they now have two class scrum-halves with Giorgio Bronzini coming virtually from nowhere to replace Edorado Gori who has been a stand-out over the last three of four years, arguably Italy’s best player behind Sergio Parisse.
Powerhouse wing Giovanbattista Venditti is a different beast playing Test rugby and Carlo Canna and Tommaso Allan have real talent although they are still inconsistent.
“You have to live in the real world with Test rugby,” concludes McLean. “You can dream of playing a more fluid attacking game but it is physically impossible unless you lay the foundations first so we in the backs know that the emphasis must be in the forwards first.
“Hopefully, though, we can evolve and work with the coaches and pull off a few plays that might surprise people.
“I’m making no predictions but my initial hope for the tournament is we produce two high class performances one after the other in our first two games, at home to Wales and then Ireland. Regardless of the results that will set us up for the rest of the tournament.”