Azzurre continue trend of summer

THE Eatate Italiana – Italian summer – continued with a late burst last week when the Italian women upset the form book to qualify for the finals of RWC 2021 which will now be held in New Zealand next October.

After conspicuous success in football, athletics, cycling, not to mention a Wimbledon final appearance for Matteo Berrettini and even a Rainbow Cup triumph for Benetton this summer, the Italian ladies joined the party with a hard-earned triumph at the European qualifying tournament.

The key was two convincing wins over Scotland – who finished runners up – and a dogged Spain, and although they lost narrowly to favourites Ireland, the Irish were spectacularly inconsistent and found a way of losing their opening game against Spain which cost them dear.

There has been much gnashing of teeth subsequently in Irish rugby circles with the IRFU’s limited funding of women’s rugby coming under criticism.

Remember this is a team that as recently as 2014 caused the biggest upset in women’s rugby history with their pool victory over a New Zealand side that had been unbeaten in the previous four World Cups.

For Italy though it has been a time of celebration not least for their scrum-half and talismanic player Sara Barattin, above, who became only the eighth women’s rugby player – and the first from outside of the UK – to win 100 caps.

Scotland must now line up in the repechage competition – date and venue to be decided – against Samoa, Colombia and the runners-up of the Asia qualifying group.