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Natwest 6 Nations] Round 3 : France vs Italy 23/02/2018 2000hrs UTC/GMT

Substantial defensive lapses aside there is possibly more to be optimistic about with Italy than since the first year of the Brunel era.

Italy can score tries. From open play! It has shut me up with my concerns about CoS and Mike Catt. They have home grown depth in pretty much every position from 6-15 (barring 12 probably).

This would be a third Italian professional victory in a week on foreign soil.

Teddy Thomas et al being dropped for enjoying the Edinburgh hospitality a bit too much is a bit of a lifeline. They are arguably the side least well equipped to expose Italian defensive frailties without their new try scoring machine.

The Italian right five will still be massive underdogs, but if they can play out of their skins (a la against South Africa 2016) then I actually think they have a chance of getting within a Parisse drop goal of victory again.

And I can't watch it live :(
 
i think this away fixture has come a bit too early for Italy. Maybe if it was a home game but I don't think they have showed enough in their two previous games to convince me they can win. Quite frankly they were crap against Ireland two weeks ago and even with the scandal and the players missing I still expect a bonus point win for France.
 
If France lose then Japan will leapfrog them into 10th in the world rankings. France missing Teddy Thomas and co will be a big loss, Italy to run france close here
 
This would be a third Italian professional victory in a week on foreign soil.
What a stat. On a hat-trick!

I'm cheering Italy for this game - for Japan's sake.
Japan becoming a top 10 country would be the perfect news for the Sunwolves to wake up to on their first matchday of the season :D
 
As Mike wrote up here, it's too early for an italian upset. France left home Thomas & Company but the overall quality of their individuals is still clearly above our. I mean, they can drop in Fickou and Bastareaud in this "emergency" situation.
Our concrete chance for victory will be real only if France, too scared of a home defeat against the poor cousin of the tournament, gets shaky legs and brain explosions somewhere, somehow. And, given this condition, if the Azzurri will play with bloody eyes like a raging bull.

If one of these 2 conditions won't be present I say France by 20.
 
France: 15 Hugo Bonneval, 14 Benjamin Fall, 13 Mathieu Bastareaud, 12 Geoffrey Doumayrou, 11 Rémy Grosso, 10 Lionel Beauxis, 9 Maxime Machenaud, 8 Marco Tauleigne, 7 Yacouba Camara, 6 Wenceslas Lauret, 5 Sébastien Vahaamahina, 4 Paul Gabrillagues, 3 Rabah Slimani, 2 Guilhem Guirado, 1 Jefferson Poirot
Replacements: 16 Adrien Pelissié, 17 Dany Priso, 18 Cedate Gomes Sa, 19 Romain Taofifenua, 20 Kélian Galletier, 21 Baptiste Couilloud, 22 François Trinh-Duc, 23 Gaël Fickou

Very happy to see Beauxis and Basteraud starting - nothing to fear there. Hopefully Trinh-duc and Fickou don't get much time to show their ability.

EDIT: I don't seem able to add lineup to first post.
 
Why oh why do France persist with that lump Bastareaud? At least Fickou can come on and lighten the game up - in both senses of the word!
 
Italia:

15 Matteo MINOZZI (Zebre Rugby Club, 5 caps)*
14 Tommaso BENVENUTI (Benetton Rugby, 47 caps)*
13 Tommaso BONI (Zebre Rugby Club, 10 caps)*
12 Tommaso CASTELLO (Zebre Rugby Club, 7 caps)
11 Mattia BELLINI (Zebre Rugby Club, 10 caps)*
10 Tommaso ALLAN (Benetton Rugby, 35 caps)
9 Marcello VIOLI (Zebre Rugby Club, 10 caps)*
8 Sergio PARISSE (Stade Francais, 131 caps) – capitano
7 Maxime Mata MBANDA' (Zebre Rugby Club, 13 caps)*
6 Sebastian NEGRI DA OLEGGIO (Benetton Rugby, 4 caps)
5 Dean BUDD (Benetton Rugby, 8 caps)
4 Alessandro ZANNI (Benetton Rugby, 101 caps)
3 Simone FERRARI (Benetton Rugby, 10 caps)
2 Leonardo GHIRALDINI (Stade Toulousain, 91 caps)
1 Andrea LOVOTTI (Zebre Rugby Club, 22 caps)*

a disposizione
16 Luca BIGI (Benetton Rugby, 8 caps)
17 Nicola QUAGLIO (Benetton Rugby, 4 caps)*
18 Tiziano PASQUALI (Benetton Rugby, 4 caps)
19 George Fabio BIAGI (Zebre Rugby Club, 20 caps)
20 Federico RUZZA (Benetton Rugby, 4 caps)*
21 Edoardo GORI (Benetton Rugby, 67 caps)*
22 Carlo CANNA (Zebre Rugby Club, 26 caps)
23 Jayden HAYWARD (Benetton Rugby, 5 caps)
 
COS still on this 5 third-rows thing. No true locks on the field, only Biagi who played amazingly well vs Connacht (MoM) is on the bench. We have been blown away in scrum against Ireland and England, why the hell should this pay against a so heavy scrum such the french one? As if we gained anything on defending the open field, but honestly, It didn't.
Hope this time's going differently and I hope for a general improved performance in defence generally and outside Boni in particular.
 
COS still on this 5 third-rows thing. No true locks on the field, only Biagi who played amazingly well vs Connacht (MoM) is on the bench. We have been blown away in scrum against Ireland and England, why the hell should this pay against a so heavy scrum such the french one? As if we gained anything on defending the open field, but honestly, It didn't.
Hope this time's going differently and I hope for a general improved performance in defence generally and outside Boni in particular.

I didn't notice Italy struggling so much at lineout without specialist locks. I think the France, England and Ireland will always dominate any current Italian pack in the scrum as the front five is one area where there doesn't seem to be so much youth talent coming through???

Maybe O'Shea just really rates his back row talent and wants as many of them on the park as much as possible?

This selection is capable of beating that French selection if they can hold tight in the first half and the French crowd starts to turn on their side. I can't predict that as the French crowd seem strangely positive in nature despite the dross they have been subjected to over recent years. So I'm going for...

France by 11 (no BP)
 
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This Italy team need a win as badly as any I recall, in fairness they have gotten the consensus big two out of the way so it's all downhill from here! I don't know why exactly but I have a feeling this one could end up going the way of the azzurri.
 
I didn't notice Italy struggling so much at lineout without specialist locks. I think the France, England and Ireland will always dominate any current Italian pack in the scrum as the front five is one area where there doesn't seem to be so much youth talent coming through???

Maybe O'Shea just really rates his back row talent and wants as many of them on the park as much as possible?

This selection is capable of beating that French selection if they can hold tight in the first half and the French crowd starts to turn on their side. I can't predict that as the French crowd seem strangely positive in nature despite the dross they have been subjected to over recent years. So I'm going for...

France by 11 (no BP)

Not in the lineout, but in scrum for sure. The times of Castro, Lo Cicero, Perugini and so on are really far away.
It seems that the trend we had in the last 15 years has been inverted, we don't produce anymore good front rows but we have a good amount of possible choices in the backline.
Remember that 3/4 of our back line isn't the best we could deploy, since we have out Leo Sarto, Campagnaro and Morisi (who is well recovering in Benetton now).

Anyway, we in Italy are discussing about why this instead of that (specially we'd have liked to see Polledri, given the persisting injury of Licata) but I think that's time to win with mind and balls. It's not a question of starting XV anymore, It's time to show some attitude. Time not to be always victim of the events but try to bend the game in the direction you want to. I don't know if we are ready for this, I think we are getting closer but we still have a big attitude gap holding back us. We are too used at losing games and in my opinion, changing this behaviour is the biggest between COS' challenges.
 
Not in the lineout, but in scrum for sure. The times of Castro, Lo Cicero, Perugini and so on are really far away.
It seems that the trend we had in the last 15 years has been inverted, we don't produce anymore good front rows but we have a good amount of possible choices in the backline.
Remember that 3/4 of our back line isn't the best we could deploy, since we have out Leo Sarto, Campagnaro and Morisi (who is well recovering in Benetton now).

Anyway, we in Italy are discussing about why this instead of that (specially we'd have liked to see Polledri, given the persisting injury of Licata) but I think that's time to win with mind and balls. It's not a question of starting XV anymore, It's time to show some attitude. Time not to be always victim of the events but try to bend the game in the direction you want to. I don't know if we are ready for this, I think we are getting closer but we still have a big attitude gap holding back us. We are too used at losing games and in my opinion, changing this behaviour is the biggest between COS' challenges.

Italy used to have the strongest tight five, and dreadful backs. Now the team is more balanced, but we will miss those great props. On the other hand, the back row is overpopulated with young talent: Licata, Giammaroli, Polledri, Negri, Mbanda...

The losing mentality is the greatest flaw of Italy. I really believe that they should play more against T2 countries, to learn to win. They are use to always play against T1 and lose, but they shouldn't fear games against Georgia, Japan, Romania... There they can try different systems and start winning regularly.
 
Italy used to have the strongest tight five, and dreadful backs. Now the team is more balanced, but we will miss those great props. On the other hand, the back row is overpopulated with young talent: Licata, Giammaroli, Polledri, Negri, Mbanda...

The losing mentality is the greatest flaw of Italy. I really believe that they should play more against T2 countries, to learn to win. They are use to always play against T1 and lose, but they shouldn't fear games against Georgia, Japan, Romania... There they can try different systems and start winning regularly.

Couldn't agree more, a summer series between Italy and Georgia would garner much interest and if Italy were successful, would provide a level of vindication going into the following 6N.
 
We'd like to play against Georgia and we're going to play them in November, finally. It's World Rugby that decides who's playing who and since Italy is ranked as tier 1 we get often tiers 1 or pacific nations. It's the same reason that creates Georgia's complaints for not getting chances to challenge tiers 1 more usually.
There's no complete freedom for national federations about this, I'm not an expert of these mechanisms but I ensure you that we can't wait to play against Georgia or Romania or whoever.
 

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