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 
‘Don’t forget our propensity to play like shite in the opening 6N match, regardless of the opposition.’
Pfffffft. That’s our thing.
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Folau is joining the Catalan Dragons. Coincidentally :
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I’m glad the press are shortening Catalan Dragons to Catalan. Probably saved me from a jaunt into intensive care.
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‘Osian Knott (Scarlets), Aneurin Owen (Dragons)’
Great couple of names.
Although I keep getting Aneurin muddled with Aneurysm in my brain.
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Ireland: J Larmour; A Conway, G Ringrose, B Aki, J Stockdale; J Sexton, C Murray; C Healy, R Herring, T Furlong; I Henderson, J Ryan; CJ Stander, J van der Flier, C Doris.
Replacements: R Kelleher, D Kilcoyne, A Porter, D Toner, P O’Mahony, J Cooney, R Byrne, R Henshaw.
I shouldn’t be nasty to a fellow countryman, but reading that teamsheet I couldn’t help but recall player ratings I read on Twitter after NZ vs Ireland RWC QF. For CJ Stander it simple read ‘CJ By-Stander’
Congrats to fellow Capetonian Rob Herring for his first Ireland cap as the proper 1st choice hooker. Certainly paid his dues being Best & the rest.
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Looks weak.
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Ireland by 67
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Ireland – freed of the shackles put upon them by Josef Schmidtler – will roll over crisis team Scotland and everyone will start overrating them.
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I’ve started overrating them already. Consistent, experienced core of quality players, some nujizz to liven things up, coach that has been part of the set up. Dave Kearney.
It’s evolution not revolution.
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As for Scotland.
Squad rifts. Finn’s off having dinners in Dubai and strutting his stuff in Paris. Total Coaching Failure last year. Usually have a total meltdown first game of the 6N cue coaching mystification. No Greig to referee for us. Nae depth.
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Something of a surprise that Murray is favoured over Cooney – although that’s the way the rumours were pointing. Otherwise only other surprise is Aki over Henshaw, and maybe Herring instead of Kelleher.
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Bit early for predictions what with most teams not being announced yet but hey I’m going for it.
Wales > Italy by 12. New Welsh coaching set up so not expecting fluency but will have too much at home for the Azurri.
Ireland > Scotland by 67. ’nuff said
England > France by 11. England pack will have a bit too much and bludgeon their somewhat more callow looking French counterparts to a standstill. The exciting looking backline won’t be able to fire on the back foot.
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‘Something of a surprise that Murray is favoured over Cooney’
He’s gone the full uncle Deccie already.
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Calling all volunteers! Looking for 6N ATL previews for Ireland and Wales this week.
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Vern Cotter to Fiji
I believe the Lions were snapping at his heels until they realised it was a coaching, not playing position.
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Vern Cotter, blog hunter.
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Is that you volunteering to write a preview, Deebee? ;-)
Although you have promised one on SuperRugby soon!
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Ah. Right. And so I have. I was thinking we should get the 6N out the way first, let the dust settle and then focus on the important stuff.
I’ll try and get it done this week, Thauma, work permitting.
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Thanks, Deebee – next week will be fine … supposing anyone writes anything for this week!
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Feeling the vibes, vibe-wise. Ireland look potentially ahead of the pack. England might have a touch of flake and distraction but should beat all-comers except Ireland. If France got off to a flying and winning start then dog knows, but they are unlucky to play England first up. Wales will be mediocre with flashes of hope. Scotland are under immense pressure to finally make the way they want to play transfer into results, cos Finn is gone and Tooney is on borrowed time. Italy have nothing to gain or lose, but things might go a bit bonkers when they want to launch Sergio into posterity.
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Iks – perfect material to start your preview with.
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Great previews Ladz, lovely to read. Craigs going the Full Irish* with his underdogging.
*otherwise known as Pulling a Larry.
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This weekends fixtures are all trolling us with the Brexit thing.
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Careful, now.
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The Welsh and, particularly, English underdogging is just feckin ridiculous. Not to mention their overdogging of the Irish.
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Pulling a Larry
As it were…….
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Everyone stop pulling the Larry
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Ah but Thauma, our readers deserve some respite from my annual Wales 6N witterings.
Yosoy gets a free pass as he’s got lost in space with Sergio, but why stick with my Welsh tug when there are ocean liners and dreamboats posting on here? We could even fall back on CMW’s view from the canoe if all else fails.
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I pulled Larry after we shared a t-bone in Belfast.
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“I pulled Larry after we shared a t-bone in Belfast.”
So many Karls, so little time……
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This is cool, some great footage of a different type of aurora https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jan/29/amateur-stargazers-capture-new-form-of-northern-lights
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A big hello from my hospital bed.
The knee looks like it has been hit repeatedly with a mallet but the pain contro lis getting better and I was obliged to zimmer around yesterday -more today – after the operation on Monday.
There is also an ‘interesting’ machine that automatically flexes and bends the offending knee at the pleasure of the Physio- once strapped in there is no escape!
More anon!
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“Me,oh my!………………………Look at that Country Pie!”
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Sounds sore Slade! Hopefully all the bending and flexing and stuff gets you back on your feet in no time! In the interim, I’ve heard a good claret does wonders for mobility.
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@slade
There’s a reasonable probability that your prosthetic knee was manufactured by Zimmer.
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@slade
happy recovery, keep poppin’ them pills
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Zimmer – legend:
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I would have gone with :
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Chin up, Sladey. Any French rugby fans in the hospital?
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Just paid my tax for last year. My wallet feels like Slade’s knee.
Damn gov’ment takin’ ma hard unr’ dollars.
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Refit, it’s such wonderful music. Brings back the marvellous films as well. Paradise.
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You should be in for a rebate if it’s like Slade’s knee. Or a new wallet.
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Hmm…
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I guess that’s why Jiffy never coached
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Needs more jizz.
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Don’t do that to me Yos!
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As you all well know – the only appropriate tribute to Hans Zimmer is this:
and if you ever wondered what “musical hell” is …try listening to this played about 10-15 times a day over a couple of weeks
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@Iksy
Yeah but I’m only preparing you for when that backrow is picked for realz tomorrow. You’ll thank me for it, one day.
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@trisk
That is glorious. John Williams doesn’t have that on his CV. Having said that if Williams were to score that he’d probably just nick the theme from “Lovejoy” and stick his name on the manuscript.
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