It’s all about SMALL VICTORIES
The Italian job is viewed as an impossible one but coach Conor O'Shea sees real progress as he starts out on a second Six Nations campaign
CONOR O’SHEA is bracing himself for a special type of homecoming next weekend — his Italy team are in Dublin and the former Ireland full-back can’t wait for the family reunion. ‘I’ll have to make sure they are all wearing Italian jerseys,’ he quips over the phone from Rome in the build-up to today’s championship opener at home to England.
‘It’s brilliant and I’m actually going to stay for a few days before Italy get together again because it’s my mother’s 80th around this time. I’ll stay around for a couple of days and I even said to Joe Schmidt at the Six Nations in London launch that hopefully we will meet up for a coffee in and around Terenure, see what weaknesses he pulls us apart on. I’m sure he will open up after the game, not before it.’
13 defeats in 17 outings since taking charge of the Azzurri haven’t diminished O’Shea’s enthusiasm for Test rugby’s impossible job. Brad Johnstone, John Kirwan, Pierre Berbizier, Nick Mallett and Jacques Brunel have all failed in attempting to stop Italy from being Six Nations whipping boys.
However, while O’Shea’s first attempt ended in predictable disaster, Italy finishing bottom for the 12th time in 18 Championships and suffered a seventh whitewash, his passion to succeed retains the fervour of an American evangelist trying to convert the non-believers.
‘I really feel we are making progress, but it’s a long, hard slog to change something that hasn’t been changed before. They are a great people, they want it and I am not talking about the players, I’m talking supporters, the Italian media. We are all really disconsolate, disillusioned, disappointed after a defeat, that is the nature of sport but don’t do the job if it’s not hurting.
‘It needs to mean something.’
Otherwise this latest spring campaign would already be written off as a lost cause, two six-day turnarounds adding to the steep mountain O’Shea and Co are trying to climb.
‘The schedule will be tough but as I said to the players, if you don’t want the challenge the door is there.’
Their coach is well up for fight. Whereas previously in his Harlequins days he would drop in on other trophy-chasing teams — such as tonight’s Super Bowl contenders, Philadelphia Eagles — it’s insight from fellow strugglers he now craves.
Take Italy in Australia last June, O’Shea spent his downtime at AFL minnows Brisbane Lions. ‘We just spent the day talking about little wins. How you keep energy, celebrate little wins as you are on a journey, and keep people on that journey with you.
‘I get a chance to talk sport, talk rugby and talk all the time. It’s a joy and you’re getting involved now in the Six Nations, but I can only keep this energy when I see change happening. We all would like to change everything overnight, but we don’t have unlimited money.
‘We have the lowest budget in the Six Nations, so we have to be very systematic in how we go about these things. We have to be clever with our fitness. We cannot break the players, we can’t flog them and say we have got 20 more where you have come from. We have to just do it slowly.
‘We are beginning to see the scale of the challenge and feel we are making progress. We have to show the resilience we showed last year.
‘We’d a terrible day against Ireland, but we came back two weeks later in England and didn’t roll over. That was a watershed, not just in terms of the resilience but proving to people that if you do things differently and just don’t do the norm, you can enact change.’
O’Shea’s Italian connection goes way back to when the game turned pro. He was contracted to London Irish but was still able to play in Europe for Leinster, scoring their first ever try in the tournament away to Milan in 1995 and celebrating after on an expenses voucher worth five Irish punts.
Sirmione on the shore of Lake Garda is now his family home, a town situated between Treviso and Zebre, the two Italian Pro14 franchises who are improving under Kieran Crowley and Michael Bradley. O’Shea feels his Irish background is perfectly suited to the Italian way. ‘It’s a different culture and you can’t go against the culture, but we can learn from Italian life. I’m lucky to be Irish. Irish and Italian people have a lot in common in terms of family is huge, food and drink in a good way, a good time in each other’s company. ‘But trying to instigate change within that culture, there is a reticence, a slowness, to embrace change. “We have always done it like this”. It’s about marrying all that up. ‘I really believe what we are building now is something that over the next four to six years is going to be a team that is going to stay together and have a lot of ability within it. ‘As we develop that depth I talk about, that competition will start spurring people on and we will be more competitive. ‘I just want to look back and say I have done what I feel is my best and what is right for Italian rugby. If that means in four years’ time I’m watching someone else with this team getting great results, I don’t care. ‘I just want to do what is right and hopefully we get that opportunity. Not to be world champions, not to be Six Nations champions, but I really do believe we can be as good as an Argentina, be able to go out and do some things in matches that people will never take us for granted. We will get there.’
‘THE GAME AGAINST ENGLAND WAS A WATERSHED FOR ITALY’