O’Shea defends Azzurri’s place in Six Nations

FORMER Italy coach Conor O’Shea, now the RFU’s director of performance rugby, is adamant the Azzurri must stay part of the Six Nations despite heavy losses in the opening two rounds of this year’s Six Nations.

O’Shea was winless in the Six Nations as head coach from March 2016 until the end of the last World Cup. Yesterday’s defeat at Twickenham was their 29th consecutive loss in the tournament. Their last victory was over Scotland in 2015.

Former Wales and Lions captain Sam Warburton last week said ‘enough is enough’ arguing that Georgia deserve the opportunity to replace Italy in the Six Nations.

But O’Shea countered: “When you look at their style of play, they’re infinitely better than Georgia. They are trying to play a really good brand of rugby under Franco (Smith).

“The questions will always be trotted out, ‘Should they be there? Should there be relegation?’ My view is that they earned their place in the first place and my view will never change that our job, in rugby, is to promote the sport.

“Our job is to have a strong Georgia and a strong Romania and strong Pacific island teams. How do we grow the game?

“The worst thing you can do now is contract, and some decisions now could make that happen, which you shouldn’t do.

“We should all want teams like Georgia and Romania to grow, but let’s not kill off any other nation while we’re at it.”

O’Shea added: “Italy don’t play second teams and they don’t play noncompetitive games.

“People would be licking their lips about what they could do to Georgia (in the Six Nations) rather than using that game to try 500 different permutations.”