The Azzurri will be seeking a breakthrough in the upcoming Six Nations championship ahead of the Rugby World Cup in the autumn.
Coach Pierre Berbizier will take the Italian team to the Six Nations and Rugby World Cup this year.
After making steady progress since joining the Six Nations rugby tournament in 2000, Italy’s national team, the Azzurri, are looking to 2007 to be a breakthrough year.
Coach Pierre Berbizier’s side impressed in 2006 and the mood in the Azzurri camp is upbeat. The Italian team was competitive in all of its Six Nations encounters and was unlucky to end the tournament with just one championship point, gained from a 18-18 draw against Wales. The aim is to build on that headway in the upcoming Six Nations campaign – which starts here in Rome on 3 February against France – in view of the Rugby World Cup to be held in France starting in September, when Italy will be out to reach the quarter finals for the first time.
In their debut game in the Six Nations in February 2000, the Azzurri made an instant mark, beating title-holders Scotland 34-20. But the first few seasons in the competition were tough and at times the Italians looked out of their depth as they piled up a run of 14 straight defeats.
Former New Zealand All Black John Kirwan’s term in charge of the Italian team (July 2002-April 2005) had its ups and downs, but he stopped the downward slide. Although Kirwan’s team lacked attacking flair, under him the Azzurri gained mental strength, ground out important Six Nations victories over Wales and Scotland and put in a respectable showing at the 2003 World Cup.
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Kirwan believed the Azzurri were finding the leap too big from the mediocre opponents they were meeting every week in the domestic Super 10 league to the Six Nations matches. To get around this, Kirwan banked on youth. The idea was that giving promising players experience of international rugby in the formative years of their careers would help make up for the lack of top-class action in the domestic league. The policy paid off so well that around two-thirds of the Azzurri squad have been snapped up by clubs in the bruising French and English leagues. Players such as centre Mirko Bergamasco, who plays for French club Stade Français, and Marco Bortolami, who captains for Gloucester, have flourished as a result.
Berbizier, a former French scrum-half, took over from Kirwan as coach in 2005 and seems to have led the Azzurri up to another level still. He has continued with Kirwan’s focus on young talent, but also injected some venom into the attack. Italy’s traditional strength is the power of its forwards, so it has been encouraging to see the backs passing the ball around with a sense of adventure over the last year. The fact that the Azzurri were disappointed with November’s narrow 25-18 defeat to two-time world champs Australia says a lot. The Wallabies had thrashed Italy 69-21 only one year before.
Berbizier expressed satisfaction at the progress made in a recent interview published on the Italian Rugby Federation’s website, but also stressed that the time for honourable defeats is over. “We have to learn to win games when we have the chance to do so,” he said. “We lost the games in November against the Wallabies and Argentina more than our opponents won them… We have to work on the details that make the difference between top and middle level teams. The foundations of the Italian game are good, and we keep improving, as we saw with the big wins we registered in 2006 over the teams behind us in the ranking – Portugal, Russia and Canada”.
One of the problems Italy has had in recent years has been finding a replacement for legendary fly-half Diego Dominguez, international rugby’s all-time second highest scorer, who retired from Azzurri action in 2003. Indeed, Italy’s fortunes this year will depend greatly on the form of the current holder of the Number 10 shirt, Ramiro Pez. When inspired, Pez can unlock the best defences with his shimmies and chips and keep the scoreboard ticking over with sweetly struck penalties and drop goals. But when he is off-song, he fumbles like a rookie, misses tackles and his kicks to touch and is a general liability. Berbizier will have his fingers crossed.
The Italian team has never won away from home in the Six Nations, but this year it may find things easier on its travels than at the matches to be played on home turf. The Azzurri will play host to competition favourites France (3 February), Ireland (17 March, St Patrick’s Day) and the ever-inventive Welsh (10 March) at Rome’s Stadio Flaminio – all difficult encounters. But the Italian team will fancy its chances of springing a surprise when it pays a visit to crisis-hit world champions England on 10 February. England has lost eight of its last nine games, so the time could be ripe for the Azzurri to take the scalp off the only Six Nations side they have never beaten. They should also be in a confident mood when they meet their regular wooden-spoon rivals Scotland at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium a fortnight later.
Berbizier is unlikely to say it, but the Italians will want to win two games or more in this Six Nations – a goal never achieved in a single campaign up to now – to prove they are moving in the right direction. Failing that, a single win over a superpower like France or England might do.
At the World Cup, the Azzurri will be in Pool C with New Zealand, Scotland, Romania and another country that has yet to qualify. The mighty All Blacks look certain to win the group. So the final pool game between Italy and Scotland on 29 September should decide who will go through to the knockout stage as runner-up. With the tournament being hosted across the border in France, the Italians will have no shortage of support. So there can be no excuses. At the World Cup, Italy has a date with rugby history.
SIX NATIONS 2007 (3 Feb-17 March)
The six nations are England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, France and Italy.
Each team plays five matches in total, one against every other nation.
Matches are played either home or away at Twickenham in London, the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Murrayfield in Edinburgh, Croke Park in Dublin, the Stade de France in Saint-Denis (near Paris) and the Stadio Flaminio in Rome.
Two championship points are awarded for a win, one for a draw and none for a loss.
