Azzurri to provide stern test for Ireland

An estimated 10-12,000 Irish supporters are expected in the Eternal City by the Italian Federation for next Saturday’s biannual trek to Rome.

This revives memories of the last time this fixture was a St Patrick’s Day finale in 2007 when a sun-drenched Blarney Army of 15,000-plus helped turn the Stadio Flaminio into a near Irish carnival as Ireland made a bold bid for the title with a 51-24 win. Admittedly, of course, there may be another minor matter of interest for the visiting Irish hordes, but this St Patrick’s Day will scarcely compare with six years ago.

For starters, Ireland will become the last Six Nations visitors to the 74,000 capacity Stadio Olimpico since Italy moved there for last season’s tournament. And the Azzurri have averaged 66,000 in their five games at the home of Roma and Lazio as compared to the homely if humble Flaminio (capacity 38,000). The forecast is alo for unremitting rain in Rome all week.

Italy were unlucky not to beat England in their first game there, having led 12-6 and by two tries to nil at half-time only to be beaten by a Charlie Hodgson chargedown try, they subsequently beat Scotland there and, of course, France this season. The 42-10 defeat to New Zealand, a week after losing by 22-19 to Australia, was distorted by the concession of three tries in the last 13 minutes. On a sodden day in Rome, the teams were better off without the ball than with it, and Wales won by dint of their scrum and defence.

Potent scrum and maul
Six years ago, Italy were coming off successive wins over Scotland and Wales

, but there was a sense that they had already achieved a high of four points for the first time.

There are also more strings to their bow now under Jacques Brunel, with caution having given way to adventure. Under John Kirwan and then Nick Mallett, Italy relied on potent scrum and maul, and played plenty of one-off rugby and territory. Brunel has sought to revive their overt French influence, á la George Costes in the late 1990s, whose golden generation oversaw three successive wins over Ireland.

A place-kicking return of 52 last season undid much of their good work in last season's tournament, when Italy made more off-loads than anyone else and kicked less than Wales, England and Ireland. Most strikingly, when the opposition turn over the ball deep in Italian territory nowadays, their first instinct under Brunel is to counter with the ball in hand.

Gallop over untouched
This manifested itself within two minutes of their opener at home to France, Italy going through 13 phases and France attacking off a turnover only for Luke Mclean counter-attacked off a Frédéric Michalak kick before Luciano Orquera released Sergio Parisse to gallop over untouched. The ball had been in play for two minutes and six seconds.

Similarly, two more energy-sapping passages, the second originating in a 50m break by French scrumhalf Maxime Machenaud led to another McLean counter before Orquera put Martin Castrogiovanni over.

Defensively, Italy commit no more than one or two men to the breakdown, with the rest fanning out and pushing up hard. Hence they’ve shown an ability to defend comfortably through many phases. The system also tries to regularly hide Orquera, who is from the non-tackling school of outhalves, be it on either wing or at fullback, with Masi pushing up into the line and McLean covering at fullback at Twickenham on Sunday.

The point has been stressed by the RTÉ panel of Donal Lenihan, Shane Horgan and Conor O’Shea on Sunday that Ireland will need to go “up the guts” through the forward carriers rather than, as Sir Clive Woodward lamented of England, going too laterally, quickly, and try to off-load.

Quick recycling
England showed, with patient if quick recycling, that through attacking closer

in, be it a winger eyeing up a prop and then off-loading, the Italian defence can be opened up, even if they did then butcher a couple of try-scoring opportunities in the first half. And as was shown in the Ireland-Scotland game, never give a sucker an even break.

Had England converted them, no less than Ireland in Murrayfield, they might have gone on and won well. Indeed, had a full-strength Ireland struggled to put Italy away at home on the weekend’s best conditions by 18-11, one wonders what kind of opprobrium would have been heaped upon Declan Kidney.

Ireland’s trek to Murrayfield generated the highest penalty count (29) of the dozen matches to date; when Scotland were wrongly yellow carded on one occasion but ought to have been on three other occasions.

The Scots have conceded more penalties (55) than anyone else, with Ireland (46) next followed by Italy (43), England and Wales (37 each) and France (30), and on Saturday again conceded 16 penalties. Ten of these afforded Leigh Halfpenny a kick at goal, yet somehow Craig Joubert didn’t think such repeated infringements merited a yellow card.

Although Ireland could have more quibbles than France over some of Steve Walsh’s decisions last Saturday, the penalty count (14) was the joint lowest along with the Italy-Wales game on opening weekend, when Nigel Owens was the referee. Alas, Barnes is in charge again next Saturday in the Stadio Olimpico, so another high count and perhaps yellow cards can be anticipated.

The refereeing, along with the mid-winter weather, has contributed to dampening the high expectations generated by the opening weekend, when 16 tries were scored, whereas there have only been 15 in entirety over the last three rounds. But at least the climax has been set up interestingly.

gthornley@irishtimes.com