Much has been written and said about Italian rugby (male senior team) over recent years – a lot of it has been complimentary as to how Jacques Brunel has taken the team forward since he took over after Italy failed to get out of their group at RWC2011.
Italian Rugby – End of Term Report on Jacques Brunel
Now that a full cycle of 4 years has come around, and he is stepping down after the 2016 Six Nations, maybe it is time to see how, if at all, the Gallic hand of Brunel has affected the results on the pitch.
Perhaps a step back first with a little background on Brunel’s pedigree.
He was a decent club player, starting and ending his career at Pau with stints at Grenoble and Carcassonne before starting his coaching career, again at Pau, in 1988. He was a particular success with Colomieres taking them to the 1999 Heineken Cup Final, losing 21-6 to Ulster. In 2001 he joined the French National team under Bernard Laporte, where he played a significant part in winning two Six Nations Grand Slams (2002 & 2004) as well as a fourth place in both the 2003 and 2007 RWC Finals. Despite this level of success with the National team he, along with the entire coaching team, were sacked after the perceived failure at the 2007 ‘Home’ World Cup! He was soon snapped up by Perpigan though, where he won the Top 14 on two occasions before taking up his post with Italy immediately after the 2011 RWC.
So, on paper at least, he had a solid track record.
Brunel’s appointment as the new Head Coach of the National team was made before the 2011 World Cup, when it was clear that Mallett was not continuing in his post. He, therefore, had the perfect opportunity to assess the player pool that would be available to him as soon as he officially took charge.
Now, I am not privi to his thought processes during that time, nor do I know what restrictions, if any, were placed on him by the Federation. What I do know, is that he missed a huge opportunity to take a longer-term view towards RWC2015 and immediately blood a greater number of younger players with a view to having an extremely experienced team four years down the line. Unfortunately, shortermism is something that blights many a coach and it is a brave decision to forgo immediate ‘success’ for longer term benefit. Although, with Italy’s playing record, it can be argued that there was nothing to lose.
Brunel has overseen 45 games so far in his tenure and, despite this, going into RWC2015, 17 of his 31 man squad had less than 30 caps each (out of interest the figures for New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and England are 9, 11, 12 and 18 respectively). So, whilst, at 591 caps, his final match day XV against Romania might seem relatively experienced, it pales into insignificance when compared to New Zealand’s 997 caps for the final. The bottom line is Italy could have had a vastly more experienced, and more settled, team going into RWC2015 and that might, just might, have made the difference when it came to their matches against Ireland (where admittedly they played reasonably well) and France (where both teams were woeful!). Had they won either, they would have qualified.
Unless you are unlucky as a coach, you are not going to be judged solely on your performance at one Rugby World Cup. So, has Brunel been a success in the other 41 games in charge?
Well, no is the simple answer!
I have heard so many people saying how Italy have improved over recent years and, at times, I have felt like a lone voice in stating that all they have actually done is change how they play and that, although it might make for more attractive viewing, it certainly hasn’t improved their win/loss ratio.
Yes, it is true that Italy are capable of the occasional ‘one off’ win over a team higher placed than them in the World Rankings (France and Ireland in 2013 are the most recent examples), but they are incapable of putting a decent string of victories together and, apart from 2013, when was the last time that they won more than a single game in the Six Nations?
They have, in fact, been recipients of the wooden spoon 10 times in the 16 years that they have been involved in the Tournament and in 3 out of the four campaigns that Brunel has presided over. Not really good enough, particularly when both Scotland and France have been particularly vulnerable throughout this period!
Brunel has also, arguably, been the coach best placed to take Italy to the next level with unprecedented numbers of players available to him, the change in structure of the Federation with Academies set up to develop potential players from the age of 16 and the fact that Italy have had two teams playing in what is currently the Guinness Pro 12 league. None of these factors have translated to better performances or results on the pitch.
The greatest frustration, to any supporter of Italian rugby (and, I would imagine, to any coach), has to be the fact that, for a while now, Italy have been able to compete with the very best for at least the first half of any game. New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, amongst others, have all experienced a scare or two before they have come through to win and, from my experience, it is not that the opposition notably ‘up’ their game that enables them to win, but that Italy self destruct. Why, in these days of strength and conditioning coaches, sports psychologists and video analysis coming out of our ears have Italy been incapable of ‘fixing’ the problem that plagues them in the second half and last 20 minutes in particular? It must be particularly galling, if you pardon the pun, when the junior age groups and the women’s team have been performing so much better.
If his influence off the pitch could be assessed I wonder if it would be any more positive. If the alleged lack of unity between him and the players during the World Cup is anything to go by, probably not.
As I said before, Brunel has presided over 45 games. He has won 11 and lost 34 (a win ratio of only 24% – mind you you have to go back to 1993 to find a coach of Italy with a ratio of over 50% – and Mallett’s ratio was poor at 21%) and has never won more than one match in succession.
He has just announced his 38 man squad for a training week starting on 14 December. Admittedly his overseas players are not available, but it contains 21 uncapped players (55% of the squad) and 17 are products of the National Academy. It begs the question…… Why, oh why, did he not do something similar in 2011? It could all have been so different.
Would the trite comment of “Could do better” be apposite for Monsieur Brunel? I think not! I am sure that he would be dreading the moment his parents opened his end of term report – it would not make for easy reading!
“Main Photo”
