Playing Italy in the Six Nations after the elite, top of the top end environment of Paris two weeks ago is a comedown, there are no two ways around it. A lot has been written and said about Italy over the last few years – some of it fair, some of it less so – but the reality is that Italy haven’t won a game in the Six Nations since 2015. They are on their third coach since that game seven years ago and they’ve made consistent style changes in the interim. Italy have attempted to play the type of rugby that a few different really intelligent coaches have decided is the way forward but, as we know, with attacking expansion there is a risk if you don’t have the power to anchor it.
Italy don’t have the power, yet, but they are trying to build just that. Keiran Crowley has been in charge of Italy since May of last year but you can already see elements of his successful Benetton style beginning to take shape. That said, it’s a difficult ask to duplicate Benetton’s 2018/19 PRO14 season – objectively the best relative performance of an Italian side in an elite competition across an entire season since the 2013 Six Nations and arguably the best ever – because the levels are way, way higher.
That levelling issue has been the key undermining factor for Italy in the last 10 years as the changes in the game have accelerated. It is not correct to say that Italy have not improved in the last decade. They have improved, just not at the same level as the other Six Nations sides, who were already ahead of them before they ever started improving. Crowley needs some puzzle pieces to scale up his side at a faster rate.
Italy have made strides in one key area by successfully planting Paulo Garbisi at test level. Garbisi is far from the finished product but, at 21, it would be bizarre if he was. If he continues at the rate he’s improving at, Italy will have a top-quality #10 for the next decade at the very least. The main challenge for Crowley will be finding, developing and then laying out the physical components ahead of him and alongside him to allow him to succeed.
Crowley’s expansive style needs to be anchored by size and power, but he knows this. The more expansive the rugby you want to play, the more collisions you need to win – and gravity you need to exert – to create the pockets of space you want to exploit with your expansivity. In that regard, the loss of Saracen’s Marco Riccioni to a season-ending ACL injury was a pretty big blow before the tournament began. One player doesn’t make the team, of course, but you need guys with Riccioni’s profile in the front five these days and when you’re without them, it hurts your ability to play the way you want.
All that said, however, I think Italy will look at this Irish selection and think they’ve got a shot. They might be delusional, they might end up being blown out the gate, but they look like they’ve come to Dublin to shoot their shot one way or the other.
Italy: 15. Edoardo Padovani. 14. Pierre Bruno, 13. Juan Ignacio Brex, 12. Leonardo Marin, 11. Montanna Ioane; 10. Paolo Garbisi, 9. Stephen Varney; 1. Danilo Fischetti, 2. Gianmarco Lucchesi, 3. Pietro Ceccarelli, 4. Niccolò Cannone, 5. Federico Ruzza, 6. Giovanni Pettinelli, 7. Michele Lamaro (c), 8. Toa Lalafihi
Replacements: 16. Epalahame Faiva, 17. Ivan Nemer, 18. Tiziano Pasquali, 19. David Sisi, 20. Manuel Zuliani, 21. Braam Steyn, 22. Alessandro Fusco, 23. Marco Zanon
This Irish selection stretches the kind of pack build that I believe you need to be successful at test level.
Now you might say that it’s against Italy and, as a result, it doesn’t really matter what side Ireland put out we should be winning regardless – and I’d agree with you – but… I have concerns.
I still expect Ireland to win, don’t get me wrong, but this back five build of, essentially, two half-locks, a strike wing forward (Van Der Flier), a combo-flanker (O’Mahony) and a heavy combo-flanker (Doris) is as about as mobile as we can go with this current wider squad group as selected. Injuries and covid have hampered that, for certain. I think one or both of Henderson and Ryan would have featured here to possibly give Porter/Furlong a break but the injury to Kelleher would have shifted the rotation policy there too.
With England on the horizon, Ireland cannot afford for Furlong and Porter – our two most important players by some distance – to go too deep into this game but I think Ryan and Henderson’s absence dictated that they start to allow Ireland to play a simulacrum of our peak power game and League style attacking shape. I’d be shocked to see either go beyond the 55th minute but that increases my worry about Ireland’s ability to build the platform we need to play our best rugby.
That will put a lot of pressure on Baird, Sheehan, Beirne and Doris to set a platform and for the bench to keep the pressure going. Beirne and Doris can cover both roles really well – carrying and offensive ruck support – but Sheehan and Baird will need to show they can balance the ball carrying we know they can do with the kind of offensive ruck support work they need to keep the chain of quick ball going. The key for Ireland is using Furlong and Porter’s minutes on the field as productively as possible before things become a little less predictable late in the game.
We know Italy will kick the ball to us – they handle the ball the least of all the teams in the tournament after the first two rounds – but I would say it’s worth loading up on possession instead of trading kicks back. Italy concede a lot of defensive breakdown penalties and if that holds in this game, our work off the offensive maul should be enough to deal serious damage fairly consistently.
From an Italian POV, it’s hard to read too much into what we’ve seen from them in the first two games. They seem to be using elements of a three lock pack with their pack build – and have gone with a 6/2 split here – with a dual playmaker system at 10/12. They use a lot of the same screenplays and shapes that everyone else does when they do actually keep the ball in hand, but they are constantly undermined by poor passing and poor decision making at key points.
They play with depth, they use Garbisi as a strike playmaker in the wider channels and have a lot of variety in their kicking game but man, the errors are hard to handle at times.
Despite having the lowest amount of Balls Played By Hand so far, they have the highest amount of handling errors per BPBH in the opening two rounds – 0.06. So there will be errors – probably – but I wonder what will happen if Italy can actually string together that last pass.
I think using Paulo Garbisi and Leonardo Marin as dual playmakers should help Italy’s use of depth and clean up some of their iffy passing decisions once they get the ball to that depth. Marin has played at #10 for most of the season at Benetton and I’d expect him to essentially play the same role here at #12. If Italy can get that depth, having Marin and Garbisi in key creative positions has the potential to be dangerous but I expect Ireland to starve Italy of possession for much of the game, so Italy will need to be more efficient than I think they are capable of being to have a shot here.
