De Marigny: We can scuttle Scots
A win will take the Azzurri through to a meeting with the winners of Pool D, likely to be either Argentina or France with Ireland now considered an outside bet.
Despite Italy’s difficulties in finding form at this World Cup, a breakthrough today, Marigny feels, would mean so much to the Italian people.
“It has been a remarkable year for Italian sport; lots of bad things going on in football which is still the real deal for the Italians. But we got a lot of credit for what we achieved in the Six Nations; for a change there were some front-line headlines in the sports papers.
“Rugby has a better image than football with regard to players and spectators and it’s important to maintain and build on that.
“It has also helped that it’s World Cup year, and the Italian sports fan loves these big occasions. And we haven’t lost the run of ourselves. Berbizier (Pierre, the Italian coach) has made us keep our feet firmly on the ground.”
Roland di Marigny is the guy who a notched a last-gasp try against Ireland in Rome — a try that affected the points difference in the Championship and allowed France to take the trophy — but even those heroics didn’t guarantee him a first team place here. He starts on the bench today but is likely to see game time.
It has been an unremarkable World Cup for the Azzurri, struggling even to put third-tier nation Portugal to the sword and largely failing to build on the promise of last season’s Six Nations that saw Berbizier’s side record wins over today’s opponents in Murrayfield and against Wales in Rome.
But the South African born and bred Italian international, who only qualified to play for the Azzurri on residential grounds, smiles at the prospect of doing damage to the Scots for the second time in a year.
Accepting that Italy’s win in Murrayfield was sparked by a 21 points scoring surge — three intercepted tries and conversions inside the opening seven minutes — he still believes that they can do it again.
“I thought we did that in Murrayfield because Scotland came back at us very strongly from a seemingly impossible situation. An Italian team from a decade ago might not have survived so easily.
“But we can’t build our hopes on the fact that we scored 21 points against Scotland in such a short time with three intercept tries; we’ve got to be calculated in the way we think and, fine, passion is everything in one sense but it has got to be matched with a steely, determined attitude.”
“Everyone is saying that Ireland, if they can get through their group, will meet either New Zealand or Scotland (first or second in our group).
“I wouldn’t bank on that because I think we can take second place. Maybe there will be another shock and Ireland will qualify as group winners to take us on in a quarter-final,” he said.
He is under no illusions about what has to be done against the Scots to ensure progression. Di Marigny believes that the Azurri are capable of getting to the World Cup quarter finals, but recognises that everyone has to turn up fit and well to compete in every single match.
He explained: “The problem about Italian rugby is that we don’t have any real strength in depth. We lost four players for the Ireland match last season and we all know what happened. It might have been a much closer match — although I doubt if we could have beaten them — had we been able to call on a full squad.
“Things are improving because guys are getting experience by playing club rugby in France and England. It raises the bar a bit, but club rugby in Italy is still struggling to produce the required number of quality players needed to bring the game forward enough in this country,” he said.
Yet, he noted: “On a different level, I suppose it’s the same for Ireland. They’re up with the best, but they don’t have the numbers if they’re hit by a serious injury crisis. We have quality players in key positions; Ireland obviously has, but the likes of New Zealand can really call on an endless supply of talent,” he said.
These are big days for Italian rugby and de Marigny feels they’ll need to be at their best to overcome an in-form Scotland.
He turned his back on good money to move back to Italy and play with Calvisano. A small sacrifice, he said in relation to a golden period in Italian rugby: “Anyone involved in rugby wants the country to do well; we have a chance of moving forward now.”
SCOTLAND: R Lamont (Sale); S Lamont (Northampton), S Webster (Edinburgh), R Dewey (Ulster), C Paterson (Gloucester); D Parks (Glasgow Warriors), M Blair (Edinburgh); G Kerr (Edinburgh), R Ford (Glasgow Warriors), E Murray (Northampton), N Hines (Perpignan), J Hamilton (Leicester), J White (Sale, captain), A Hogg (Edinburgh), S Taylor (Stade Francais).
ITALY: D Bortolussi; K Robertson, G Canale, Mirco Bergamasco, A Masi; R Pez, A Troncon (capt); S Perugini, C Festuccia, M Castrogiovanni, S Dellape, C Del Fava, J Sole, Mauro Bergamasco, S Parisse.
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