Italy hold narrow lead at interval

Italy 16 Portugal 5

Italy held a narrow lead over Portugal at the break despite dominating a scrappy Pool C match at the Parc des Princes tonight.

The Italians dominated the first half, spending almost the entire 40 minutes in the Portuguese half, but had just a converted Andrea Masi try and three David Bortolussi penalties to show for it.

Plucky Portugal answered back with a David Penalva try in their only attack of the half, and only gutsy defence and sloppy Italian errors were keeping the sides close.

Italy started superbly, with Portugal having no answer to the burrowing charges of their forwards early on.

The pack helped create the first try, doing all the donkey work before the ball was fired out by fly-half Roland de Marigny to centre Masi, who scorched through a midfield gap to ground under the posts. Bortolussi scored the conversion.

A seventh minute yellow card to captain Marco Bortolami, for punching, momentarily took the wind out of the Italians’ sails.

But they still held the whip hand and the lead was added to in the 17th minute thanks to a Bortolussi penalty, awarded for a Portuguese offside.

It continued to be one-way traffic but the gutsy Portugal defence battled away, and forced the Italians into a number of handling errors as the half wore on.

Pierre Berbizier’s side were forced to rely on the boot of Bortolussi to nudge them further ahead, the full-back kicking a second penalty to make it 13-0 after 30 minutes.

They were then hit with the sucker-punch. In Portugal’s first meaningful attack, Duarte Pinto made deep inroads into the heart of the Italian defence, before the ball was recycled out to the right wing where Penalva was on hand to receive Diogo Gama’s clever pass and dive over.

Pinto missed the conversion and Bortolussi booted an late penalty to stretch Italy’s lead.