RUGBY ITALY V IRELAND:IF NOTHING else, Italy won't lack for experience. The side which Nick Mallett has chosen to face Ireland in tomorrow's Six Nations opener is crammed with familiar faces, with the starting team boasting 649 caps at almost 43 per player, and the match-day 22 averaging almost the same with a total of 934 caps to their names.
This compares to the combined 527 caps of the Irish XV, at 35 per man, and the total of 730 for the match-day 22.
The inspirational Sergio Parisse is back as capitano, having been sidelined for last season’s Six Nations and having overcome an injury scare while playing for Stade Francais nine days ago, while there are the usual gnarled and grizzled types in the pack and hardened Test operators in the outside backs.
The one area where the Italians are trying a relatively new combination is, yet again, in the perennial problem positions in the half-backs, where the Treviso pair of Edoardo Gori (20) and Kristopher Burton (30) make their first championship starts.
Mallett himself was not rolled out at the Italian squad’s sun-kissed, rustic base 20km to the east of Rome yesterday to explain his starting XV. You couldn’t imagine a base more hidden away than the quaint, tree-lined Hotel Parco La Borghesiana, which, for all its charm, also has an impressive array of pitches, as well as a state-of-the-art gym following its renovation six months ago.
Gori, last season’s Italian under-20 scrumhalf, made a decent fist of things last November when called in for the games against Australia and Fiji. Pablo Canavosio impressed as an impact sub in last season’s championship, when scoring three tries, only to flounder when promoted to the starting team in their final against Wales. He is now consigned, perhaps ever more, to the role of impact replacement.
The only problem is that Gori has started just one match since November for Treviso, where South African Tobias Botes keeps him out of the team.
The bigger surprise was at outhalf, where Mallett has plumped for the Australian-born Burton. He qualifies through his Italian mother, and moved to Italy seven years ago. His fifth cap and biggest chance to date comes about in part due to Craig Gower’s knee injury and the unimpressive autumn former of Brive outhalf Luciano Orquera.
Burton recognises that this has remained a problem position for the Azzurri ever since the smiling assassin, Diego Dominguez, retired. “I don’t think you can look at it in terms of what people expect of you. You’ve got to do your job and hope that it all comes together.”
From Brisbane, Burton began playing rugby league from four before switching to union at 13. At 23, while playing with the Queensland seconds, he failed to make the cut for the Super 14 squad and acted upon a suggestion from his mother, Angela (Dascanio) to check out his roots.
“I had the opportunity to come over and basically try and play for the Italian team if the opportunity eventuated. But originally it was just to experience life in Italy, because I hadn’t explored my Italian heritage.”
Burton talks of bringing “a solid kicking game” against Ireland, “and if we can get on the front foot, be dangerous with the ball, and basically give us a structure that the whole team has been working on.”
Of Ireland he says: “They always have a good kicking game, and try and put sides under pressure with their kicking game and then their attack. They always want to look to attack, so if we can get a good defensive line up it can cut down their options.”
As for his counterpart, Jonathan Sexton, Burton says: ”He’s got good skills and a good passing game, he can mix it up. He can have a go if he wants to, which is basically what I am looking to do for Italy. He gives the boys a chance to move it wide when they need it, but he’s also not afraid to have a go himself. If he sees a hole he’ll have a go.”
Burton’s fellow Aussie-born member of Treviso and the Azzurri, fullback Luke McLean, suggests Mallett’s selection of Burton is with a view to broadening their attacking threat. They have scored only two tries in their last five Six Nations games at home and, though they restricted Argentina, Australia and Fiji to just four tries last November, scored only two themselves.
“He’s played sevens rugby, so he’s capable of going by himself if there’s a bit of room, he’ll have a look to go,” McLean said. “He has a good kicking game as well, and playing week-in, week-out in the league at that intensity, has to help.”
McLean agrees with Burton that of the “massive changes” he has seen in his three-and-a-half seasons in Italy, the biggest has been the improved professionalism and fitness which has come with their advent to the Magners League.
