Beware Azzurri’s backbone
Such is the pride taken by the Azzurri in their scrummaging prowess, you would almost imagine Italy backs coach Alessandro Troncon had the least demanding coaching job in the tournament ahead of this Pool C finale, a must-win game for both sides.
“Leave it to Martin Castrogiovanni, Sergio Parisse and the rest of the heavyweight pack in blue to get the job done,” you could hear old scrum-half Tronky being told by head coach Nick Mallett, “these boys have what it takes to get us to a first quarter-final in our history.”
Italy backs Luke McLean and Gonzalo Canale are happy to perpetuate the belief despite the evidence of the past nine months painting a different picture. And when Italy’s results this year are compared with Ireland’s in 2011, it also indicates Declan Kidney’s side is just as forward-orientated as the Italians.
Both teams have scored 25 tries, with Ireland having played two games more, while both countries’ forwards have scored eight tries apiece, although the Italian scrum has forced two further penalty tries out of opponents, one in each of its last two World Cup games against the USA and Russia.
Furthermore, Ireland have actually failed to score a try in four of their last 12 games while the Italians have failed to cross the paint just once in 10.
“We know very well how strong our forwards are,” Canale said when asked about the so-called plight of the under-utilised Italian backline.
“Even if we are maybe not running the ball so many times, we are available to develop the team gameplan. Certainly, sometimes, from a backs’ point of view, it’s not so much fun to play in a team so strong in the forwards but it’s more important to win as a team than to touch the ball as many times as we can.”
This is no attempt to portray Italy as some sort of barnstorming side wooing rugby purists everywhere with sevens-style rugby in the Test arena yet any backline with players such as Mirco Bergamasco, Andrea Masi and the fast-rising Tommaso Benevenuti should be written off at one’s peril.
Australian-born McLean helped carve open the Irish defence in Rome in the Six Nations opener between the two sides last February, giving the Azzurri hope of a famous win before Ronan O’Gara rescued the visitors with a drop goal to seal a lucky 13-11 win.
“That was something we’d worked on going into that week, trying to attack them that little bit wider with certain movements,” McLean said.
The Italians, you can be assured, will spend the week analysing Ireland’s usually watertight defence, cheered by the two tries conceded by Kidney’s side against Russia last Sunday in Rotorua.
“They made a lot of changes for that Russian game and you look at us as well, we let three tries in against Russia,” McLean reasoned. “So maybe that’s a little bit of a concentration thing as well, once you get to a certain point, ahead by 30 or 40 points, you start playing with the ball more and not tackling as much.
“But we’ll have some clips to go through to try and see where to attack them, where we have to defend a little bit better and whatnot.”
Inevitably, though, the conversation with McLean turns to that scrum with the full-back prompted to deny it is the only facet of Italy’s game.
“No, no, it’s just one of those things, when you’ve got a scrum that does dominate that much it’s going to take most of the lights and the fame.
“They do a great job. There’s not many scrums dominate them and they go forward and get penalties, a great thing for the backs as well, put us in a position where we can work as a team to try and put points on the board.
“That’s a great thing about Italian rugby, the forwards pack. They work hard and they deserve all the credit. Once we’re on the field, it’s a 15-man, and a 30-man squad. We all work together but when you’re reading the paper it is about them all the time! But they respect us and we respect them and that’s a good thing for the team.”
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