ITALY: Azzurri in Space
Italy squad for the 2020 Guinness Six Nations
Props
Pietro CECCARELLI (Edinburgh Rugby, 9 caps)
Danilo FISCHETTI (Zebre Rugby Club, uncapped)
Andrea LOVOTTI (Zebre Rugby Club, 40 caps)
Marco RICCIONI (Benetton Rugby, 7 caps)
Giosuè ZILOCCHI (Zebre Rugby Club, 2 caps)
Hookers
Luca BIGI (Zebre Rugby Club, 24 caps)
Oliviero FABIANI (Zebre Rugby Club, 10 caps)
Federico ZANI (Benetton Rugby 13 caps)
Second row
Dean BUDD (Benetton Rugby, 26 caps)
Niccolò CANNONE (Argos Petrarca Rugby/Benetton Rugby, uncapped)
Federico RUZZA (Benetton Rugby, 18 caps)
David SISI (Zebre Rugby Club, 9 caps)
Alessandro ZANNI (Benetton Rugby, 117 caps)
Back row
Marco LAZZARONI (Benetton Rugby, 4 caps)
Giovanni LICATA (Zebre Rugby Club, 8 caps)
Johan MEYER (Zebre Rugby Club, 4 caps)
Sebastian NEGRI (Benetton Rugby, 22 caps)
Jake POLLEDRI (Gloucester Rugby, 13 caps)
Abraham STEYN (Benetton Rugby, 36 caps)
Scrum-halves
Callum BRALEY (Gloucester Rugby, 5 caps)
Guglielmo PALAZZANI (Zebre Rugby Club, 36 caps)
Marcello VIOLI (Zebre Rugby Club, 15 caps)
Fly-halves
Tommaso ALLAN (Benetton Rugby, 54 caps)
Carlo CANNA (Zebre Rugby Club, 39 caps)
Centres
Giulio BISEGNI (Zebre Rugby Club, 14 caps)
Tommaso BONI (Zebre Rugby Club, 11 caps)
Luca MORISI (Benetton Rugby, 29 caps)
Alberto SGARBI (Benetton Rugby, 29 caps)
Back three
Mattia BELLINI (Zebre Rugby Club, 22 caps)
Tommaso BENVENUTI (Benetton Rugby, 62 caps)
Michelangelo BIONDELLI (Fiamme Oro Rugby/Zebre Rugby Club, uncapped)
Jayden HAYWARD (Benetton Rugby, 23 caps)
Matteo MINOZZI (Wasps Rugby, 16 caps)
Edoardo PADOVANI (Zebre Rugby Club, 24 caps)
Leonardo SARTO (Benetton Rugby 34 caps)
Italy go into this year’s tournament fresh, in some ways. New coach? Check. Former Cheetahs and Newport Clart legend Franco Smith takes over the ‘I’m picking the team’ task with previous coach Conor O’Shea moving to Twickenham to become the new RFU director of performance rugby. New captain, too, in Zebre hooker Luca Bigi, and while there aren’t many new caps, the squad is still relatively light on the cap count. It’s a team that’s been around a bit, but the age profile suggests that the 2023 World Cup cycle was always the plan rather than the most recent event in Japan.
It’s a new Italy in many ways and the King is dead. Well, almost. He’s making a comeback, briefly. Despite not being named in their squad, Italy’s most capped player, Sergio Parisse, is going to play at least one more time for Italy against either Scotland or England.
I’m going to go out on a limb and make a prediction here: Parisse will play in the match v Scotland. Why? Because he’ll want to go out on a winning note and Scotland still represents Italy’s best chance of a win in the 2020 Six Nations, 20 years on from their winning debut against the reigning Five Nations champions. They have wins against all in this competition apart from England, but have not won a Six Nations match since 2015. Here’s a good quiz question: who was the last Italian outside half to start in a winning Six Nations match? Don’t google the answer and let me tell you that it was Kelly Haimona. Remember him? Even better question: the last starting outside half when they won a home match? Luciano Orquera. In 2013.
Are Italy going to win a match this season? Realistically, no. They face Wales (where they’ve never won) and France (one win ever, pre-Six Nations in 1997) away from home in the first two rounds before facing Scotland in round three. England are visitors to Rome in round four and they’ve never lost to Italy, so…. A trip to Dublin rounds off the championship and, yes, Italy’s record there is not good. The Azzurri’s chances rest on the round three clash, sandwiched between the previously mentioned fixtures. It is not so much on their own form coming into this, but more on how Scotland have got on two weeks prior in the Calcutta Cup match. If Toonie retains his hex over Eddie, then you’d have to fancy Scotland to put the clown suit on Italy.
But wait … minutes after I write the above paragraph, Finn Russell is sent home from the Scotland camp for being naughty.
Let me re-write this story. Are Italy going to win a match this season? Well, they face a Scotland team shorn of their playmaker, with a coach under pressure after a pool stage exit from the World Cup. All the pressure in that match is on Scotland. For Italy it is a celebration of all the good moments that Sergio has brought them. Why can’t they win? Why can’t they send their most iconic player of all time off into the sunset with a win? Good things do happen. People sometimes go home happy. Rome is a pretty joyous place most of the time but imagine it after the first Italian Six Nations win at home in 7 years: kids throwing themselves into fountains, grown men clasping at Tommy Allan’s hands as he is chaired off after dropping an injury time goal, every pizzeria making haggis-topped pizzas for one night only. Believe, Italia. Believe you can win and win well. Don’t make me come back next year and write the same Six Nations preview reminding you of when you last won a match. I don’t want to do it, you don’t want to hear it and my server doesn’t want to store this file for 12 months. Win, if not for me, win for little Sergi.
Can Italy win against crisis team Scotland? Yes. Will Italy win against the Finn-less, rudderless Scots? Don’t take my word for it, take the word of the first Italian in space, Franco Malerba, when he says “La Scozia? Pfft, naturalmente vinceremo”.
Preview courtesy of Yosoy
ENGLAND: Fecked!
England’s ‘Prospects’ For the 2020 Six Nations
The lie of the land
In a word, we’re fecked. If you are wondering why the beaten Rugby World Cup finalists are fecked, allow me to elaborate on why this is.
We were BEATEN by the dastardly Boks in the RWC final having duffed the All Blacks in the previous week. We should have been handed the cup and been given an apology by Rassie Erasmus for having the temerity to even think about competing with us for the cup. That would have been justice served. Justice 4 Brexit, Justice 4 Boris, Justice 4 Sag.
Instead we were smashed in the heid, scrum and breakdown and did stupid, stupid things like put Faz in a lineout. I know he can counter ruck the Scottish lock off a ball, but feck the feck off the lineouts.
More recently the wonderful, lovely, amazing Saracens have been fined, points docked and told they will be relegated at the end of the season. Just for some measly lost pounds. Which those dastardly Munster boys told Jamie George he should lose. The fecking cheek of that.
So, with a beaten up, demoralised, divided camp let’s look at these wooden spoon receivers.
Forwards
The good news is that we’ve nicked the heinous Bok forwards coach. The bad news is that he’s definitely a plant and we’ll be running upright into contact and stripped of the ball by some cheeky Valleys scamp in red. The scrum will go backwards, the lineouts fail and Billy is broken again. Maybe he should run with his arms above his head like my uncle, Earl Cnut, in battle.
Props are too fat and slow, locks are knackered, flankers are locks, no8 is broken. In terms of selection, I am sanguine. There’s no one else available. We’re absolutely fecked.
Backs
Where to start with this bunch of clowns. I guess Eddie is determined to give Ben Youngs his centurion of caps. But if he doesn’t improve then he can make like a tree and get out of here.
It would have been nice to have seen Shithair in the squad but he’s injured. Otherwise we’ve got Manu. At least we’ve got Manu. He can pair up with JJ. But when was the last time Bath actually won anything? Last millennium. They’ve been shit since Guscott left. Maybe Manu could play no8 or something and we don’t even have centres.
Fly half is captain Faz and will probably be red carded two minutes into each game and we can’t rely on his boot.
Our wings are sort of okay, but the only time they’ll see the ball is when they are retrieving it from the crowd. At least they can chase a kick.
I’m predicting disaster.
Matches
France
First up in Paris. We’ll get mullered by a hungry French team displaying the guile and wit we knew they were keeping secret for the last 15 years as a funny prank to play on us in this game. About the same score as last year, but reversed.
47-8 to France.
Scotland
Then we come to Murrayfield. Even if you told us to hold on to a 30-point advantage for half a game, at home, we still couldn’t win against this lot.
This is Scotland’s Six Nations Grand Final and they’ve had the Calcutta for the last 2 years (cats have also been lying with dogs). Expect this to continue for another year with a pictures of an arse-faced EnglishScotsman holding the cup sticking his tongue out like Gene Simmons (but without the infamous charm) appearing all over Twitter. Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you.
23-3 to Scotland
Ireland
We then come to the first home game where Ireland will roost us into oblivion and avenge the freak loss from 2019. England’s forwards won’t have enough for this bunch of miserable bastards. Only the sight of a beaten puppy can crack a smile into their faces. That beaten puppy will be England.
28-3 to Ireland
Wales
Next up, we have the Welsh at Twickenham. New coach, some new players, world cup high of winning morally against the All Blacks, means that this Welsh team will cross the Severn brimming with confidence. Expect it to rain Welsh tries and the doom and gloom to continue. England will be served on toast mixed into a cheese and beer sauce.
60-0 to Wales
Italy
The last game should be the easiest, but we’ll be so lacklustre that we’ll fuck it up and Sergio will finish his glittering career by ratcheting up a win against us in Rome. England to be roasted in a giant pizza oven and served up on smaller pieces of toast than last week.
10-9 to Italy
Conclusion (#FACTBOMB)
So there we are. Fecked. England to eat shit and come last. Eddie, the French and the Celts to keep laughing. The Italians to stare disbelievingly at each other until the June tours when Reality will rear its hideous head. Craigsman to pick the wrong month to give up meth again.
Preview courtesy of Craigsman
Further Reading
FalteringFullback with more on England’s woes, and his 6N predictions.
On the telly this week (sod all)
Friday 24th January
| Northampton v London Irish | 19:45 | BT Sport 2 |
Saturday 25th January
| Southern Kings v Cheetahs | 13:00 | Freesports |
| Bristol v Gloucester | 15:00 | BT Sport 2 |
Sunday 26th January
| Harlequins v Saracens | 15:00 | BT Sport 2 |
Ovally Balls 
He didn’t say anything racist. But plenty of Mona’s followers obviously don’t know who he is so are making assumptions. He spends much of his time (it appears having just looked) suggesting that not all black people are victims and that not all white people are privileged. Which should be uncontroversial.
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Sam Moore – Legend.
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Exhibit number 1:
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number 2 (and the last from me):
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Welsh 2023 British Lions players update: Mason Grady was man of the match for Ponty v Bridgend at the weekend.
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OT – hmm. All of them seem to be unpleasant and not very literate characters.
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@thaum
they appear to be the professional outrage mob. Best ignored.
Anyway @tomp
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I should point out that I thought the cat reference was not great initially. But then I read the rest and fine, it’s not clever, but she’s a fucking moron. Very aggressive too.
Courtney also gets +1 for defending Yasmine Mohammed. So, on balance, he wins.
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I’d never heard of Mona Eltahawy, but from her wiki bio, she walks the walk – she’s been arrested, beaten up and sexually assaulted by riot police for standing up to the Mubarak regime in Egypt, she has repeatedly spoken out for women’s rights in the Muslim world, she’s got courage, for sure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Eltahawy
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Ticht – I’ve no doubt. Just not sure why she goes after people with similar experiences.
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Craigs, I’m not sure Courtney Laws is a person with similar experiences, or have I misuderstood you?
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Sam Moore – Legend.
Legend. Always rated him. Missed him all these years.
(Never seen him play)
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Ticht – hah! No, look at who Courtney was originally defending and what Mona posted to attack her. They should be allies.
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Craigs, can you give me a quick summmary as I don’t have a Twitter account and reading the posts gets a bit disjointed?
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Ticht – ah, sorry. The gist of it (from what I can gather) is that another woman (yasmine mohammed) who fights a similar fight to Mona messaged her privately to put aside their differences. Mona published it on twitter specifically to mock her. Courtney took umbrage. It showed up on my twitter screen etc etc.
Tbh, I’m not sure how Courtney is connected.
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Happy Birthday Pride and Prejudice!* First published today in 1813. First read by yours truly as a schoolboy in the ’80s in an all-male school and hated it from start to finish. Reread it years later and it wasn’t that bad. Better than some of the contemporary stuff that I’d liked as a kid.
* Nothing to do with Courtney and Mona.
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Ready, steady, Eddie!: “I’ve never seen too much romance there. It’s normally cold, wet, damp … I think it’s probably one of the most unromantic rugby stadiums in the world. Finding the weak links in their team and trying to get an advantage … that’s what the game is all about.”
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This implies that he thinks there are rugby stadiums that *are* romantic. Hmm.
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@ thaum
There have been romantic rugby grounds
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/rugby-league-murky-end-to-myth-of-watersheddings-1284138.html
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Haven’t got the energy for Twitter so I’ll just take it that Courtney Lawes has called Iks a crazy cat lady. I assume someone from here will post that Scott Williams try in response if they haven’t already.
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All the Hask’s fault for sharing the cat recipes those astroturfers put his way. And they wonder why we all want England to lose….
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And they wonder why we all want England to lose….
There was a link to the World Cup Final article on that Eddie piece, which I clicked on to remind myself of how the Graun saw it – the BTL very quickly got dragged into pretty shitty stuff about who had the worst fans. In truth, every nation has boorish fans and it’s not helped by the Internet. Why, even very rarely you find uncouth South Africans on these things!
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cat recipes
I found a few on the BBC Good Food guide.
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*payment in whiskey update*
Still no whiskey.
*payment in whiskey update ends*
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*Finnexit update*
‘Meanwhile, Adam Ashe, Russell’s former team-mate at Glasgow Warriors, posted a picture on Instagram earlier this evening of the stand-off apparently in a restaurant in Dubai.’
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Scotland’s win percentage against the other members of the Six Nations:
England – 20%
France – 15%
Ireland – 20%
Italy – 65%
Wales – 20%
There’s some quality stats.
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‘Quality’ as in pretty pish for Scotland. Would be even worse not taking the last 3 years into account.
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Italy – 65%
*scoffs*
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Been a while since we had a nice pie. Consider this a Six Nations exclusive.
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that’s some nice pie.
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The Lions will be roaring once more this season with the signing of dynamic young tyros like Jannie du Plessis and Willem Alberts! In more intriguing news, they’re also trying to lure Jaco ‘2 tackles from injury’ Kriel back from Glos. Imagine that pack! 2 blokes on zimmer frames before half time and one hopping around on crutches. The Jaguares – first up for us- must be terrified!
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Might do a Super Rugby themed pie before the end of the week. There’s so much quality content to come.
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So sooper dooper rugby coming at ya soon.
Ahem, just supposing someone wanted to watch such a thing and no longer had Sky Sports, my friend wonders what the best streaming sites are these days?
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I’ve had to call a halt to my project, fire our implementation partner leading to explaining the delay and asking for more money from the board. Thus currently in a little lull. Just in time for Superrugby, 6Nations and catching up on the tangents and nonsense being written on AOD (is it still called that)? In a way, good timing. Another piece of good timing is Stormers vs Hurricanes being on same time as Wales vs Italy. Let’s be honest, won’t miss much not watching Wales vs Italy.
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RIP Nicholas Parsons
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Vern Cotter to Fiji
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Catching up on Finngate – lots of talk that Toonie should go/will go after the 6N.
Scots fans (and others I guess!) – assuming you think he should move on, who would you want to replace him? Seems like there’s slim pickings coach wise at the moment (obviously Eddie will shortly be available after we get our wooden spoon).
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Only 8 or 9 tries from LRZ.
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Steve Tandy.
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‘Only 8 or 9 tries from LRZ’
The rabbit-bed that is Wales-Online recons Kiwi-Taff McNichol will start.
What Wales – Italy won’t be is contest. Hence not worth watching. The tries can be caught in the 3min highlight package.
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“The investment was completely separate to the rugby for me,” said Ashton on BBC Radio 5 Live’s Rugby Union Weekly podcast.
“Nigel was never involved in any negotiations of contracts or anything like that. I saw Nigel as a businessman outside of rugby that I went to see to get a loan, like I would from the bank.
“It was completely separate to my contract. Nigel likes property, he invests in property. He came along to the house to see it with me, we had a look round and he gave some thoughts on what we could do.”
Game, set and match. Points and fine returned. Relegation rescinded. Apology accepted.
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Ok, ok. There’s more from Ginsters…
“I can completely understand why people are annoyed about it because it is a benefit that you don’t get at other clubs. Now I do understand. I do see it. At the time, I didn’t.”
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Wotcha Gecko. Don’t forget our propensity to play like shite in the opening 6N match, regardless of the opposition.
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If we’re into wooden spoon territory I can’t see how Townsend can stay.
A decent 6N i.e. actually winning more than one game and showing that he’s learnt from his 2019 shitefest and he’ll in place till at least the end of the year.
RE Finngate / Finnexit TBH it sounds like FR has been a bit of choob (given available information). Whether or not there’s a split in the camp or GT has lost the dressing room remains to be seen.
either way good potential other coach options are thin on the ground.
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Had an ‘aw diddums’ ripple there, even for someone as likable as Chris Ashton.
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I’m really not very optimistic for 2020 in Scottish Rugby terms
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Or to play like shite generally. Not looking forward to hearing ‘you have to earn the right to go wide’ every 2 minutes.
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@gecko
I’ve no doubt that McNichol will play – he’s a Pivac favourite. I’m just worried about Iksy’s reaction when he picks Shingler to start.
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Hopefully they’ll have done some rugby training instead of just weights and running up sand dunes.
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Some local talent that’s been brought through. Wales U20s to face Italy:
No second best player in the world after LRZ this week. Presumably playing for Brizzle.
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