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What a stat. On a hat-trick!This would be a third Italian professional victory in a week on foreign soil.
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)
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.