On a wet day in Rome, Italy would have wanted to carry the momentum from the emphatic victory at Murrayfield into their crunch match with France at the Stadio Olympico.
Jacques Brunel took the bold step of dropping the indifferent Kelly Haimona, but it didn’t seem the Italians day right before the off due to his replacement Tommaso Allan pulling up in the warm up with a groin strain. He was replaced shortly after missing his opening shot at goal. The slight figure of Luciano Orquera was the man to replace him and didn’t have any luck off the tee either, the signs were there that it was going to be a tough day.
Disregarding the lack of points from the tee, the Italians dominated the early stages but failed to capitalise. The French punished them when they managed to string some rugby together with the match ending 0-29.
This was the worst Italian performance of the tournament so far as confusion seemed to be far and wide throughout the team. This was culminated by the goal kicking yet again being awful and their ball handling was not up to standard. Especially in attack where they couldn’t build phases and mount an attack on the French line, it was a frustrating day in the end.
Some positives were that the pack looked effective in both the driving lineout and the scrum. If the Italians want to steal a win or two at the World Cup then this is an area they need to exploit as I have said before. This is led by Sergio Parisse as ever, who went off injured in the closing stages of the game and the Azzurri will pray it isn’t serious. Once again Edoardo Gori had a bright game at nine, and he is turning heads in this tournament so a move maybe on the cards for him club wise. Furthermore, yet again the defence was brave from the Italians and even though they can lose intensity at times due to their fitness they never stopped getting up and defending for their team.
Their final match of the tournament is against Wales in Rome and the Italians will want to end on a high. The odds are against them due to the high spirits of the boys in red after defeating Ireland last week. However, if they can put in a dogged performance and improve on their poor aspects from this game they will go into World Cup preparation with lots to work on having learned a lot about themselves from this tournament.
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