Italy vs England 2006  Match Preview

It’s amazing how the emotions of an England Rugby supporter can change so radically within the space of a few days or even hours. Take early last week for example. You wouldn’t find many England fans confessing not to be excited about the upcoming Six Nations competition. After all, England had a relatively successful Autumn; winning two out of 3 games comfortably and losing to the All Blacks by 4 points in a match many feel the home team should have won. The stage was set for this years Six Nations, and England were second favourites for the competition. That’s fine by me, look at ‘favourites’ last year Ireland and how they did. Look at New Zealand being favourites at every World Cup and we all know how well they perform in that arena. It was true, every England fan was looking forward to the opening fixture against Wales. Then, Andy Robinson stepped in to throw a dampener on any excitement. 

A flanker with little game time and a fiery temper, a centre partnership that has been criticised to death and a lack of certain creative backs three players later and not even the most passive England supporter couldn’t feel disappointed with the team selected to play. Suddenly expectations of a boring, forward dominated victory was the talk of the town. Then, come Saturday, England won well. Very well. England fans were over the moon, to beat the previous Grand Slam champions by over 30 points was something to enjoy, not to mention the fact that England threw the ball around just as much as Wales. Matt Stevens and Jamie Noon impressed and Charlie Hodgson and Mark Cueto were once again heralded as the world class players they clearly are. The pack performed fantastically, and so did most of the backs. Robinson even emptied the bench. What more could you ask for. 

Then, Tuesday arrived and amid talk of putting out a few fresh faces (Abbott, Varndell and Perry to name just a few) Robinson announced the team to face Italy would have no unforced changes from the one that thrashed Wales the week before. The only forced alteration was with Tom Voyce replacing an injured Josh Lewsey (thankfully Josh should be back on his feet soon), and many are pleased that Voyce is being given more chances to show what he can do with James Simpson Daniel coming onto the bench as cover. But why aren’t there any more changes Mr. Robinson?

Surely if you can’t experiment and start players like Varndell, Mears and Brown against Italy, who can you start them against? Romania in the World Cup pool stages perhaps? There is of course the argument that a winning team shouldn’t be changed too much that a core team needs a number of games together to gel. A win is also important on Saturday, and given how Italy gave Ireland a major scare last weekend perhaps the Azzuri shouldn’t be underestimated. But even taking a look at the bench, how can Andy Robinson select the likes of Julian White, Simon Shaw and Matt Dawson for this game? He knows exactly what they’re capable of. A wasted opportunity to at least fill the bench with new starters and let them come on later in the second half when the game has hopefully been won. 

If all goes well, Lee Mears will replace Steve Thompson after 40 minutes, Andy Goode will be given 30 minutes in the second half and Robinson will realise Simpson Daniel’s potential and play him as well at some point. Just a shame the likes of Shaun Perry, Stuart Abbott and Magnus Lund won’t be given the same opportunity. But amongst all this talk of wasted opportunities and conservative selections the team still remains very strong. 

Prop Leandro Castrogiovanni insists Italy's RBS 6 Nations Championship match against England is not a foregone conclusion even considering Italy’s 26-16 loss against Ireland last weekend. Despite being the tournament underdogs, Italy's display against the Irish gave them hope of offloading the wooden spoon onto someone else this year but then again, given Scotland’s victory against yet another ‘absent’ French team, the competition really is open to anyone.

"We'll face the English on Saturday, after a good display against the Ireland which was vital for us. We are fit and in good form and ready to battle" Castrogiovanni said.

"England are playing near their best, and last Saturday they showed how good they are. They are going onto the pitch knowing how good our scrum is, but we must still play at our very best to stop them.” 

England Captain Martin Corry addressed the media at a press conference at the Pennyhill Park Hotel on Wednesday:

“The win against Wales has given us a lot of confidence at the way we performed,” said Corry. “We put ourselves under pressure to perform at home and we must do that away when we face Italy at the Stadio Flaminio on Saturday.”

The game against Italy in Rome, will be Corry’s first as captain away from Twickenham. 

“We don’t look too much at the history of the games we’ve played as Italy has improved as a team, especially in the last year when they have made huge strides" he said.   “Italy is a quality side and on the back of their narrow loss to Ireland they will be saying to each other ‘I can’t wait until next week’. That’s one of the great things about rugby, there is always another game to put things right. We know a lot about some of the Italy players because we’ve faced them in the Heineken Cup and we know how good they are.”       

“Our criteria for this game is to improve on last week and go out there with a winning mentality and as this tournament has already shown any side can beat any other side on the day.”     

“Like many Italian fly-halves, Ramiro has got a cracking kicking boot and we can’t afford to give him any easy shots on goal so we must be disciplined and not give away penalties. He is a good attacking player and reads the game well and brings in players around him. He’ll be looking for breaks just as he did last Saturday when he made Mirco Bergamasco’s try against Ireland.”

It’s only a year and a half until England begin their World Cup campaign to defend the Webb Ellis Trophy and time is running out. The team is 10 times what it was in the previous two seasons without a doubt, but in order to challenge for the ultimate rugby prize England need to adopt one thing that New Zealand have: their strength in depth. Wales may have given us one clue in this regard, a fantastic and fully fit first team on their day, but a shocking lack of depth.

England went into the last World Cup with 2^nd and 3^rd choice players who had captained England in the run up to the competition! The very notion of Mears, Varndell or Simpson Daniel captaining a game before France 2007 is laughable given Andy Robinson’s apparent strategy of taking each game as it comes. Winning at all costs.

In any case, the game on Saturday should give England the opportunity to rack up quite a few tries and perhaps throw the ball around even more. Given the fact that this Six Nations competition could be open to anyone at the moment, points difference may be key by the end. England’s place at the top of the Six Nations table appears stable for now. That winning feeling is coming back to the squad after the disappointment of last season. Let’s keep it going…

England by 35 points.

England team to face Italy:
T Voyce (Wasps); M Cueto (Sale Sharks), J Noon (Newcastle), M Tindall (Gloucester), B Cohen (Northampton); C Hodgson (Sale Sharks), H Ellis (Leicester); A Sheridan (Sale Sharks), S Thompson (Northampton), M Stevens (Bath); S Borthwick (Bath), D Grewcock (Bath); J Worsley (Wasps), L Moody (Leicester), M Corry (Leicester, Captain).
Replacements: L Mears (Bath), J White (Leicester), S Shaw (Wasps), L Dallaglio (Wasps), M Dawson (Wasps), A Goode (Leicester), J Simpson-Daniel (Gloucester).

Italian team to face England:

Team: 15-Cristian Stoica; 14-Pablo Canavosio, 13-Gonzalo Canale, 12-Mirco Bergamasco, 11-Ludovico Nitoglia; 10-Ramiro Pez, 9-Paul Griffen; 8-Sergio Parisse, 7-Mauro Bergamasco, 6-Josh Sole, 5-Marco Bortolami, 4-Santiago Dellape, 3-Carlos Nieto, 2-Fabio Ongaro, 1-Salvatore Perugini.

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