Best try I've seen in a long time. It had everything.

C'e'!

Edit - no try... pity

Pity

Cristo riusciamo a perderla cazzo

Game over

14 - 16 Tonga

Dai ragazzi approfittiamone cazzo
Sfruttiamo noi gli errori degli altri ora

17 - 16 Italy
Dai!

Disciplina ora

Edit: ma cazzo!

Ma nooooooooooooo

Facile dirlo dopo. Bisognava piazzare nel primo tempo

Tonga deserved this. The only side that played rugby today

Arrogant team. If we took the 3 easy kicks would have won comfortably

17 - 19 Tonga
Game over
Off to a family event now
Really a pity; feel sorry for the team but they had their occasions and didn't profit...

O'Shea out!!!

Yes, spoiled their new progress. I blame the LNR banning Parisse.

How did Favaro go?

What happened? After last week I expected an Italian win. Too many mistakes? Or didn't take Tonga seriously?

Too many mistakes, and the arrogance of not taking points when we had the occasions...
In the end we scored four tries but two were disallowed (If you want to see the glass half full, these youngsters had the guts to try)

Comunque MC Lean centro tanta roba ragazzi (va be'; sono un inguaribile ottimista...).
Io non ci avrei scommesso una zucchina

Geldenhuys retires from international rugby: http://www.onrugby.it/2016/11/28/quinti ... allitalia/

Didn't watch the full game, I'm pretty disappointed with the result. This team obviously lacks talent if compared to other Tier 1 teams atm, but there is still some work to be done and adjustments made, this team still has potential to tap into.

I wonder what they can pull out during the next 6N. Wales then Ireland at home, then Twickenham, then France in Rome and then Murrayfield at the end. That's a 3-2 home game this year. I think they can target Wales and France at home. Ireland are too tight atm but Wales are very unstable as a team, starting off this 6N, they could be a bit vulnerable and on an average day, and their attacking is limited. Italy can manage something against them. And then France is volatile as ever, and Italy has been able to make them doubt lately and lose their momentum.

Zebre Rugby: Dion Berryman, Mattia Bellini, Tommaso Boni, Tommaso Castello, Giovanbattista Venditti, Carlo Canna, Marcello Violi, Andries Van Schalkwyk, Johan Meyer, Derick Minnie, Federico Ruzza, Quintin Geldenhuys (c), Dario Chistolini, Tommaso D’Apice, Bruno Postiglioni
A disposizione: Carlo Festuccia, Andrea De Marchi, Guillermo Roan, Gideon Koegelenberg, Valerio Bernabò, Guglielmo Palazzani, Matteo Pratichetti, Edoardo Padovani

Scarlets: Aled Thomas, DTH van der Merwe, Jonathan Davies, Hadleigh Parkes (c), Steff Evans, Rhys Patchell, Jonathan Evans, Wyn Jones, Ryan Elias, Werner Kruger, Tadhg Beirne, Tom Price, Aaron Shingler, James Davies, Will Boyde
A disposizione: Emyr Phillips, Rob Evans, Samson Lee, Jake Ball, Josh Macleod, Gareth Davies, Dan Jones, Gareth Owen

Padovani, revelation of the AIs for Italy, left on the bench.... That's continuity for you

You Italian guys have any projections for your team about the upcoming 6N ? There's certainly potential there as we all know, but obviously Italy lacks quality from 1 to 15, and 1 to 23 even more. Surely out of all the games you feel France in Rome is the more achievable one, based on recent history alone ?

Scarlets running away with this one. Two for Jonny Evans. Am surprised usually it's close affairs in Zebre

Spoke to soon Zebre launching a come back only two scores in it!

Treviso are actually leading away from home... It's such a rare occurrence I felt compelled to post about it

They seem determined to throw it away though

Didn’t see the whole ITA-WAL match (so I cannot properly comment on that; actually I left just before Italy fading away).
Anyway these are my impressions:
until I saw the match, Wales was pretty s.hit; no quality at all, and basically they had the referee on their side for the whole match.
So did we really lost against a monster Wales, or we basically gifted the match to the opponent, as we sometimes do?
(sorry I will not put comments on the other morons-infected threads

We are in the deep dark wood, and out of the deep dark wood the situation isn’t any better, with all these fierce beasts smelling the blood, waiting to go for our jugular.
Not only is our participation to 6N at stake – it feels like our rugby nation is going to crumble as a whole, threatened by multiple factors (not least the very same pressures coming from our demanding and beloved sport).
This is going to be our destiny, maybe.
Then, let it be.
What I know is that I will not lose faith, and I will support our National team stronger than ever, as this is the only think that unfortunately I can do to help the movement (as I wanted to sacrifice my oldest boy to the rugby cause – but he preferred swimming than taking the oval ball )

To cheer up the spirits – something to watch (nothing in particular – just the first things that pop up in my mind)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6dHFM8Tcs4 – Grenoble, of course

Italy announce their arrival in the Six Nations: 6N 2000 new joiners Italy beat 5N champions Scotland 34 – 20.
http://www.espn.co.uk/rugby/report?game ... gue=180659

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9FWvyjXkL0 – 2003 wins over Wales.
As I was there and had the chance to do the walk of Honor through the pitch with the players – and no players wanted to give me their jerseys …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne8bCsXtTbU – 2011, 12 March; win over France.
As the match was to be played in Rome, during the period of on 150th Italian Unification celebrations (17 March 1861 – 17 March 2011) I picked up an idea circulating on the web (ie that Italy should play the game on a special jersey – a red one; as this was the color of the shirts the Garibaldini wear during the Expedition of the Thousand and I actualy send an email to FIR asking to do so. They replied to me! They said it was a great idea but that unfortunately could not be enforced due to timing/sponsors issues…what a pity


Then three more videos – first three that came to my mind, as an encouragement for the future.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1Abavj16hg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROUwXIllqqs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMWt3TW1X9A

Come on!!!
Georgia, where are you???
Come and get us!!!

Your're better than Georgia .

November 2018 mate

The comment that comes to mind ultimately is: things didn't go as the fairytale would've written it.
Italians showing great passion and talent early on in the tournament, pick up a few encouraging wins on the way as displayed above this comment, just around 2009 a sort of coming together of a worthy generation led by Sergio Parisse, victories over France etc...

the fairy tale would've said: "and out of this courageous generation, the nation now flourishing with encouraging talent inspired by their elders...something something..." - and you'd see a 'logical' progression from 2000 to 2009-13 upwards, but the 'logic' in some cases has nothing to do with the actual tangible problems of an era.
Didn't happen how it'd been hoped for.

New Italy kit by Macron:



White shorts are back!

Don't like those gold bands though and I miss those 3 white stripes.

I like the gold, reminds me of the old football shirts (circa 1997) I'm not fussed at all about the Adidas stripes on the shoulder
The important thing for me is that we're getting the white shorts back

So, Gavazzi has nothing better to do with his time than to try and block Padovani's tranfer to Toulon, he really is a worm of a human being

not sure how Italian Rugby picks up again from here on out. They would need reforms and major fundamental changes and subsidizing they probably aren't willing to concede half of...
At least they'll stop beating France in Rome for sure now.
Uhm...that's, "for sure". With quotes.

Vai Benetton

Cheers Treviso! Lions are back!