Scotland 19 – Italy 22. “Italy conquers Murrayfield”. "A heroic Italy beats the Scots". "The kilts of the Highlanders are not enough to keep up with the Italian scrum". A big party, well organized by all the bodies in the sector - the press, the Federation and also the Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. In short, last week's controversy have fallen by the wayside, Italy deserves the Six Nations, Scotland should emerge from it apparently.
Yes, a defeat would seem to be enough to lose the right to serve in the prestigious tournament. There's joy, but maybe a little critical sense wouldn't hurt the intellectual honesty of many who so lavishly unbuttoned a victory that basically doesn't change anything in the deep cracks in the Italian rugby movement. But you know, everyone on the bandwagon is always a good strategy.
The defense of the XV blue has not been raised only at home, even abroad many have well judged the Italian performance, blazoning more than one player. PlanetRugby, one of the most important international magazines of the oval ball, has included four Azzurri in the ideal XV of the third day of the Six Nations. In this regard, if on the one hand the performance of Parisse and Ghiraldini is certainly commendable and their two names figure well in the XV of the phenomena of the Six Nations, on the other the appointments of Venditti and Furno leave you stunned.
The former has never been incisive, a quality that should belong to each of his performances given his physical qualities – 1,87m by 110kg for a winger who ran the 100m in the youth teams with times close to his athletic colleagues. When you looked for work to do, you did it without leaving a mark, always going ashore gaining a few meters. Her goal is the result of a succession of fortuitous events which, after the ball bounced first off the post and then on the ground, took him a few centimeters beyond the goal line.
Describing Furno's performance is at least difficult, given that his feats on the pitch can hardly be defined as rugby. As written in the article on the reasons for Italy's exit from the Six Nations, he is one of those players included in the various weight/height projects of the Federation who has not turned into a fruitful investment (but who persist in defining such ). High tackles with a grip on the opponent's shirt and an annexed turn until the centrifugal force causes the players to fall to the ground.
Crudely wrong key passages because he often finds himself in the middle of the field covering play areas that cannot compete with him, leaving those that should fall within his skills (ruck, maul, support on the axis) unguarded. Here too, the goal achieved is the result of the work of the complete pack - not of Furno - who well organized the dirving maul following the touchline on the 5 m Scottish. Here too, in reality, it should at least be highlighted that it is doubtful whether a second row player is accused of snatching the oval from the jumper's hands to play the role of helmsman at the driving maul.
Apart from these two excellent negative performances, in general Italy has returned to doing - after about a quarter of an hour of play - what little it can do. Don't let your opponents play, lead a wait-and-see defense – something Scotland allowed unrecognizable compared to the first two games – and bet everything on a full-blown and reaffirmed technical competence in the scrum. As mentioned above, two out of three tries came from forwards, after minutes of play without allowing the ball to emerge from the pile of arms and shirts that protected it. It is precisely on the goal-scoring factor that we need to focus attention given that among the numerous classifications nominated in recent days there is one dedicated precisely to the fruits of the blue attack.
In this Six Nations 2015 we are second only to England. We talk about goals achieved, a ranking where we stand on the middle step of the podium. An oddity that is amply compensated by the ranking on who has conceded the most tries, where we establish ourselves in first place with 9 goals conceded. In short, statistics that do not clarify the true nature of this national team. If in general the statistics reveal a lot but not everything, in this case they reveal almost nothing – other than the fact that there is a clear underlying problem.
The underlying problem is clearly the one suggested in the previous article, i.e. a systemic problem entirely centered on the dynamics of selection and growth of players and coaches and the lack of direct flow between Italian leagues and national representation. This is confirmed once again by the data on viewers of the oval ball. DMAX has made a good deal by buying the rights to the Six Nations, which with Italy's matches ensures peak audiences of almost 700 spectators. However, if you want to see an excellent league match, it's hard to find more than one or two matches broadcast live – and with terrible quality, by the way. Once again, the national team is one thing while the Italrugby nation is diametrically another.
In conclusion, if it were necessary to jump on the bandwagon on a triumphal march from Edinburgh to Rome to change something about these issues, there is no doubt that no one should refrain from doing so. The reality however, alas, is that last Saturday's match is nothing more than a match like any other, which could have been won and could have been lost. If we were stronger - and we have been - nothing changes from a systemic point of view, the problems remain and will remain the same. You can settle for a victory snatched in the last 40 seconds and rejoice in it, or accept what the shortcomings of increasingly firm movement are – and perhaps do something about it.
