Italy Italy have the firepower... if they can win enough ball
Brendan Gallagher finds some reasons to be hopeful of a new dawn for Italy
ITALIANS are naturally optimistic – it comes with the territory when you live in paradise – but for the pint-half-empty brigade there seems very little reason to be upbeat about their chances in the 2021 Six Nations.
It all seems to be going even more pear-shaped than normal. Their one world-class player – Matteo Minozzi – has suddenly announced he is unavailable, finding it too stressful trying to move between the Wasps and Italy bubbles and fulfil the high expectations of him in both.
These are difficult times and you could sense this coming – Wasps rested him more than strictly speaking they were required to when he returned from the Autumn Cup – but the decision when it came earlier this week caught Italy by surprise. With 11 tries in 22 Tests he is far and away Italy’s most dangerous back with the onus always on him to produce something special. He will be greatly missed.
On top of Minozzi’s absence comes that of Italy’s two best forwards who are side-lined through injury – Gloucester’s Jake Polledri and Braam Steyn the transplanted South African who quietly, in adversity and defeat, has been one of the best back row operators in the Six Nations for the last three or four years.
All three are as close to being irreplaceable as any player can be and just to round off the unavailability news Leonardo Ghiraldini has also announced his retirement. The fiery hooker was a highclass operator in his pomp which was some years ago and had been expected to retire at the end of last season, so his continuation into the Autumn was something of a surprise as Luca Bigi is now clearly the first choice and captain to boot.
Perhaps he was hanging on in the hope of a final swansong appearance alongside long time comrade in arms Sergio Parisse, or perhaps new coach Franco Smith just wanted his experience around the group.
Will we see Parisse again? Initially he intended to bow out of Test rugby at RWC2019 but those plans were blown asunder with the cancellation of their big game against New Zealand and then he was pencilled in for Italy’s home game against England last March which was lost to Covid. By the time it was rescheduled in October he was starting a new club career with Toulon and the decision was made in conjunction with Smith to opt out of all the Autumn matches.
The great man is actually playing brilliantly, even at 37, in a rejuvenated Toulon team but does he come back for one swansong performance? If a 70,000 crowd could attend the Olympic Stadium in Rome for their last home match, against Wales on March 13, you might be tempted to say yes but such a gathering clearly isn’t going to happen. A last Italy run out of Parisse is looking increasingly unlikely though you never say never.
So is there anything to enthuse over with Italy at present? Well yes. Italy have invariably been the oldest, most capped side in the Six Nations although Ireland gave them a good run for their money in the late noughties. Parisse, Ghiraldini, Bortolami, Castro, Zanni, Lo Cicero, Troncon et al. Some Italy teams were as old as the Tuscan hills. But now? Now they are preparing for the tournament with just four players with 30 caps or more.
Youth is to be given its head. Stephen Varney and Paolo Garbisi are considerable talents at half-back where they steered Italian age group teams to famous wins over Wales and England. Gloucester No.9 Varney is razor sharp, he reminds me of a young Dwayne Peel, while do not be deceived by Garbisi’s howitzer boot. He overdid the kicking in a couple of games in the Autumn but he will soon learn to trust his considerable passing and running game a little more. He is also hard as nails, a good trait for modern day fly-halves.
The backs, potentially, pose more of a threat than usual which makes Minozzi’s absence even more galling for Smith. With Carlo Canna looking much more suited to inside centre, Marco Zanon making a good impression at 13 during the ANC, the newly-qualified Monty Ioane ready to flex his muscles and the lightning quick Jacobo Trulla, Italy now possess some decent firepower.
Of course the one that got away is Paolo Odogwu and Italy – so sharp in recruiting Polledri – took their eyes off the ball badly there. They were well aware of his Italian qualification this time last year when he wasn’t making waves for Wasps and was a long way from England recognition although the potential was there for the acute observer. That’s when Italy, in some confusion with the departure of Conor O’Shea and the interim appointment of Franco Smith, should have struck. A perfectly qualified player who didn’t have to make his entrance via the backdoor of residency. It was an open goal.
None of Italy’s growing strength behind the scrum will count for a bean unless their forwards can win the ball and stop giving away an endless stream of penalties, a fault which still haunts them.
Flanker Seb Negri is back from injury which is a bonus, as is the return of versatile back five man Federico Ruzza who inexplicably fell off the radar in recent seasons. Ruzza is a top lineout operator if used properly and now that Parisse has gone Italy must use his ability in that department. The athletic Danilo Fischetti is probably the best jackaling prop in Europe but again that will count for nothing unless he can fulfil his primary scrum duties.
Lock Niccolo Cannone has something about him – old fashioned Italian grunt with a dash of Latin aggression – while Marco Lazzaroni is another old style industrious lock who Italy should probably treasure a bit more.
But does this amount to a team capable of winning a Six Nations fixture? That simple objective has eluded Italy since they beat Scotland in 2015 and it’s a big ask but these strange times have put everybody on edge and out of kilter.
Italy, as ever, are being written off but if they can get themselves into a good place mentally and play to their full potential perhaps that shock win isn’t so very far away.
going to copy the same style of rugby, we’re not going to have a very good product to try and sell to sponsors and viewers.
Back to South Africa, do you think the pandemic has done lasting damage to the Springboks?
No. South African rugby, just from a decision-making and skills level perspective, has always been a little bit behind Australia and New Zealand, but where we make up for it is with our power, strength and physicality. We have incredibly big, strong athletes who, when they put their minds to it, can mould together very quickly. Eben Etzebeth, for example, can do 100m in 11.8 seconds and we produce so many of these powerful players who, when push comes to shove, can beat anyone with the physical nature of our game. We’ve also now got players of great skill in guys like Lukhanyo Am, Cheslin Kolbe and Pieter-Steph du Toit who show beautiful touches. Given the fact that we’re never going to be short of a good pack, there’s no real weakness in physicality and that’s why South Africa will always be a threat, regardless of the long lay-off.
Has World Cup success of 2019 created more interest in rugby among South Africa’s non-white population?
Yes, the World Cup of 2019 had a massive impact, more so than in 1995. In 2019, South Africans felt this was more of a team that represented them. There were seven or eight players of colour and they were successful. You had Siya Kolisi as captain, who conducted himself brilliantly, Cheslin Kolbe scoring brilliant tries, Lukhanyo Am creating tries, Makazole Mapimpi scoring in the final and Bongi Mbonambi as starting hooker and dominating that England front row along with ‘The Beast’, Tendai Mtawarira, so it was a really powerful symbol that players of colour could make it into the national side – and not only make it but really excel. Rugby’s always been a big part of the Eastern Cape through George to Port Elizabeth and East London, but the question now is whether rugby will kick-on into the Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces and into Pretoria and Johannesburg where, for the black population, soccer has always been king. I honestly do believe the goodwill is there and the way in which South Africa connected itself in the World Cup and the way Rassie Erasmus embraced different cultures and personalities made a huge impression. If you ever watch the documentary Chasing the Sun it is an absolute eye-opener in terms of how inclusive that South Africa team was. There’s still a long road because rugby is still mainly played in schools here rather than clubs so there need to be more opportunities for black athletes, but huge strides have been taken.
What sort of a reaction would there be if Maro Itoje stepped out alongside Kolisi as captains of the Lions and South Africa?
It would be absolutely brilliant because Itoje is a guy who’s cerebral and has a really good understanding and empathy of world situations. I’ve heard him talk and he’s a very, very impressive young man. He’s 26 now and he’ll be an absolute lockedin starter for the Lions and I think he’ll make an outstanding captain. I can’t see anyone else. You’ve got Owen Farrell, I suppose, but Itoje has to be the man. He’ll have been through a lot himself so he’d be able to relate to what a tour to South Africa means and to see him and Kolisi taking the field as captains of these two teams would be truly wonderous.
What do you think of South Africa’s major provinces joining the PRO16?
I think we’re going to miss playing against New Zealand teams because we learn a tremendous amount from them. We learn how to combat superior skills and become more skilful ourselves, while the Kiwis learn that you’ve got to have physicality and a good set-piece. We’ve been good for each other but, going north, the quality of coaching is outstanding there and the organisation and technical expertise of the players is very good so we’ll learn from that. Refereeing in the north is generally accurate so South African teams will have to learn quickly and the weather up there will also play a part, but we’ve got a lot of players in Europe at the moment and there’ll be a lot of passing of information between them and players and coaches in South Africa.
The exodus of South African players overseas continues unabated, how concerned are you by that?
We must have close to 350 players overseas now but it’s a free market and guys have choices. The fact is, players overseas are getting paid three times what they would get here and if you look at South American football, all of their top players are in European leagues and it’s happened to Pacific island rugby as well. It’s not great for South African rugby that we keep losing our experienced Springboks as well as many of the younger players who would ordinarily back up these players at their provinces, but who can criticise a player like Jacques Vermeulen who has gone to Exeter and done very well? On the plus side, we do have a conveyor belt of talent coming through our schools and we’re still producing physically capable people to play rugby at a very high standard. As long as that keeps going, we’ll remain very competitive at world level.
“It’s absolutely critical that we do something about this rash of bloody box-kicks”
We’ve seen private equity firm CVC investing in northern hemisphere rugby. What’s your opinion?
I’m all in favour of professional business people getting involved in sporting situations if they can turn it into a money-making prospect. At the moment a lot of sport is losing money and survives only on television, sponsorship and ticket prices so if we can reach a stage in rugby where more investment companies are coming in, then great. You just have to look at American sport and how well they’ve done out of it. NFL, NBA and baseball have the best paid players in the world because they’ve got it right. Rugby needs to catch up.
What’s the key to unlocking the season-structure log-jam?
I would recommend at least a threemonth time-out across the globe for the sake of the players. A nine-month season, fully aligned between the north and south hemispheres, with three months for a domestic competition, three months for franchised provincial competitions and three months for international rugby would be the ideal situation. The biggest sticking point is the Six Nations but I cannot see why we can’t have a February to October season across the board.