Pasta with frog legs

[sturginho]

Player ratings from OR

https://www.onrugby.it/2022/02/07/sei-n ... ia-italia/

[JM2K6]

I really like Monty Ioane, very hard working, a bugger to stop, always seems to make ground and has some decent pace too.

Can't tackle for shit, mind

[sturginho]

I really like Monty Ioane, very hard working, a bugger to stop, always seems to make ground and has some decent pace too.

Can't tackle for shit, mind

he did make a try saving tackle on Danty though

[Lemoentjie]

I think Italy look much better than since several years. Losing by 27 points against France in their home stadium is not so bad.

I was watching a Squidge Rugby video, he gave some interesting stats on the Italy youth teams performances over the years. U20s are now maybe 3/4th best team and U18s are top 2/3. Yes of course it is just youth rugby but eventually it must filter through.

[TheFrog]

It has started to filter though and the Italian team taking on the pitch is fairly young.

There is a massive improvement in the defensive structure and Italy always had that physicality to battle with the stronger packs.

What is lacking is cooler heads at critical times, functioning set piece (which was a surprise, but then, France opted for a pack designed to battle at the lineout) and fitness to keep the intensity going for 80min.

[Slick]

I think Italy look much better than since several years. Losing by 27 points against France in their home stadium is not so bad.

I was watching a Squidge Rugby video, he gave some interesting stats on the Italy youth teams performances over the years. U20s are now maybe 3/4th best team and U18s are top 2/3. Yes of course it is just youth rugby but eventually it must filter through.

Really? That's great news!

[Paddington Bear]

I think Italy look much better than since several years. Losing by 27 points against France in their home stadium is not so bad.

I was watching a Squidge Rugby video, he gave some interesting stats on the Italy youth teams performances over the years. U20s are now maybe 3/4th best team and U18s are top 2/3. Yes of course it is just youth rugby but eventually it must filter through.

Really? That's great news!

Possible to take Squidge too seriously in his tactical analysis of a game but I think he's got some good points here, seemingly borne out yesterday to some extent.

[JM2K6]

I think Italy look much better than since several years. Losing by 27 points against France in their home stadium is not so bad.

I was watching a Squidge Rugby video, he gave some interesting stats on the Italy youth teams performances over the years. U20s are now maybe 3/4th best team and U18s are top 2/3. Yes of course it is just youth rugby but eventually it must filter through.

Really? That's great news!

I had heard the same, although the U20 side got annihilated at the weekend.

[TheFrog]

With this new coach and some new players, I liked what the Italian did the first 30’, after that sadly it went down hill.
As for the criticisms of Dupont and Ntamak, both had the Covid 2-3 weeks prior to the game ffs.

And they played behind a beaten pack, and facing a well organized defense (that had time to get organized thanks to the great work of the pack at the breakdown).

I thought Italy were also efficient at stopping our big units without committing too many players.

[sturginho]