It’s arrivederci Azzurri

Treviso will turn up in capital with little hope - just like Italian rugby

IS IT time to take a candid look at the sorry state of Italian rugby and ask if the experiment is over? The Italians’ premier club, Benetton Treviso, travel to Murrayfield tomorrow with no hope, no promise and no chance. Winless and rooted to the bottom of the Guinness Pro12 and having removed their head coach Umberto Casellato this week, this will be one match report that threatens to write itself.

Frankly, should the Italian clubs be allowed to continue in the league? This is not some vindictive swipe at a nation’s credentials without basis. The facts and figures bear it out.

Treviso have not won a league game since beating Cardiff Blues 40-24 in February last year.

They have only had three wins since April 2014, their only other victories coming against compatriots Zebre last Christmas.

Zebre themselves have beaten Edinburgh three times in seven matches over four years but victories are largely a rarity throughout their season.

Since the Italian teams’ introduction to the Pro12 in 2010, one has finished bottom every season. There has only been one year (201213) when one of their teams has finished outside the bottom three.

In the European Champions Cup, Treviso have had the Italian monopoly in the last two seasons and will surely finish bottom of their pool for the 11th consecutive year.

In fact, since 2005-06, Italian clubs have played 118 matches — with Treviso ever-present alongside either Zebre, Calvisano, Viadana or Aironi — and been defeated 111 times. That’s a whole decade with six victories and a solitary draw.

And it’s no better for the national side either. Eighty games have involved Italy since 2000 when Five Nations became Six. The Azzurri have grasped the wooden spoon in 11 years from 15, winning only 12 games in the process and never more than two in a season.

They are firm favourites to finish bottom again this year.

Now floundering 13th in the world rankings, it is time to admit that the clock is ticking on Italy’s top-tier involvement.

The inconvenient truth is that European rugby is rarely a meritocracy. Countries are not rewarded for progress, nor punished for abject failure.

The All Blacks consistently turn their backs on Polynesian neighbours but progress in the Southern Hemsiphere is sometimes positive — at least looking at the Japanese Sunwolves and Argentinian Jaguares entering Super Rugby this year.

We have been here before, of course, with some columnists also shining a harsh light on Scotland’s performances.

But at least there are signs of improvement in these parts over the last year, including Glasgow Warriors’ triumph in the Pro12, Edinburgh making it to last season’s Challenge Cup Final and Scotland’s gung-ho showing at the World Cup. The clouds have lifted… for now.

Yet despite the gallant efforts of Sergio Parisse, the Bergamasco brothers and Martin Castrogiovanni over the years, Italian rugby has never been in rude health — and is on its sick-bed as their stars grow old. So what can be done? Tom Palmer, a former England international but now at failing Treviso, believes an Italian player exodus is to blame.

‘A lot of the established Italian internationalists are now playing abroad,’ he told Sportsmail. ‘When they entered the league a few years back they had big names at Treviso like Leonardo Ghiraldini (who is now at Leicester Tigers and has 80 caps) and Lorenzo Cittadini (Wasps, 44 caps) and they led from the front.

‘Now they and many of the bigger names in Italian rugby play abroad in some of the top leagues, mainly England and France.

‘This can be a good thing, of course, for the national team because it is helping raise the standards of these Italian players and they are involved at the top level week in and week out, but it has meant that Zebre and Treviso have had to rebuild a little bit.’

While you cannot argue that there has been a player drain, how long will this rebuild take?

Perhaps it is best for them to do so outwith the Pro12. The

clubs offer little on and off the field, save the odd spring sojourn to Parma for a handful of keen supporters.

Rugby must open its doors, especially when Italy are dying in front of our eyes and with a Japanese World Cup in the pipeline in 2019.

The way to do it? Stop guaranteeing a place for the hapless Italian clubs in the Champions Cup and consider the options for a new side in the Pro12.

Georgia are prime candidates. In the second tier of European international rugby, they have won the Euro Nations Cup seven of the last eight seasons, with Romania second to them four times and champions once in that period.

But there is currently a glass ceiling. The last time Romania played a Tier One team outside the World Cup was versus Scotland in 2006 — and Georgia have only three matches against Ireland to show for their 26-year history.

More Tests will come this autumn but it is not enough. The game is developing in Eastern Europe as quickly as it is fading in Italy, but rugby is not giving them the luxuries that have been piled on the Azzurri over the last 16 years.

Being forced to reanalyse and regroup is what the Italians need.

It seems odd to celebrate the Tier Two countries every four years at the World Cup and then forget about them in between.

So while Edinburgh will be preparing the clichés of ‘not taking anything for granted’ and ‘preparing as we would for any other game’ they are all but sure of victory tomorrow night.

But Treviso and their fellow Italians should worry for their top-table existence.