Realistic Italy arrive in South Africa

Monday 16th June 2008

Italy and their South African Head Coach Nick Mallett arrived at Cape Town Airport on Monday with realistic expectations for their match against the World Champions at Newlands on Saturday.

Mallett was given a 'warm' reception upon arrival in his home town.

"It's fantastic to be back, I was given a nice welcome at the airport from the customs officials, and a few fans who saw me and shouted 'go Bokke'," said the former Springbok player and coach.

"My family was at the airport so it was good to see them as well. From an Italian side it's an usual situation to be in to bring a team to your home country. But its a privilege and a helluva challenge for a side like Italy, which is a young rugby country to play against the best team in the world."

Mallett is realistic about what he can expect from an under-strength Italian side that is missing a number of players due to their involvement in the French Top 14 semi-finals or who are injured.

"The majority of this squad comes from the Italian championship and the majority of them are quite young players," he said.

"It would be completely naive to think that this Italian side can come to South Africa and beat South Africa. [Like for Wales] the whole aspect of respect is very important.

"Obviously what I'm looking for is at the end of this tour to be able to find five or six players who've really showed that they can step up and compete at this level, it will be good for us in the Six Nations next year."

It's ironic that Mallett has brought Italy to face his former side at Newlands, his old hunting ground as a Western Province player and manager.

"I've actually had an experience like this before. I was picked for a Western Province Barbarians team against the Springboks in 1985 so that was unusual at Newlands as well," he explained.

"We had a very good side and managed to beat the Springboks that day. Ironically that day the crowd was very supportive of the Barbarians side.

"This time the crowd is obviously going to be very supportive of the South African team and it's important for us to be as competitive as possible and hopefully the crowd will be knowledgeable enough to see when we do that and appreciate our efforts."

Mallett has held his post for six months and says he now has a feel for the Italian team having been able to put some of his own structures in place.

"I had a couple of small camps with the team in November and December last year. The Six Nations was a great experience for me, seven weeks non-stop with the team. I thought Sergio Parisse was a great captain and he did a great job for me," he said.

"I've spent a lot of time in Italy going around to watch all the side's games. There are numerous problems in Italian rugby that the federation is aware of and are hopefully going to take steps to address to terms of the quality of their local championship so that their nationals side has more Italian players to choose from.

"[Rugby] is very much a Cinderella sport in Italy but it's had a really good boost in the last four or five years because of the performance of the national side."

Mallett has indicated that just how adventurous Italy will get, will be influenced by the conditions on the day. But one can expect a forwards orientated game - Italy's strength.

"A lot depend on the weather in the Cape," he said.

"If you're playing in Pretoria of Bloemfontein you can be pretty sure of having sunny weather and a dry ball. Here, a lot depends on what the weather will be like, so we'll have to make sure we play to our strengths and not to South Africa's strength.

"One of the truisms of rugby is is that if you hold onto the ball the other team doesn't have the opportunity to score a tries. So we'll obviously be trying to hold onto the ball that we get."

Mallett was the Springbok coach when South Africa hammered Italy 101-0 in Durban in 1999 while Italy's current manager, Carlo Checchinato, was a player on that tour. Now the shoe is on the other foot, so to speak.

"That's why Nick became our coach now," joked Checchinato.

"Italian rugby was going through a touch patch at that time and the South African team were on a high and there was a lot of competition in the squad," added Mallet.

"The situation today is not dissimilar. We're realistic enough to know that if you do your maths, South Africa beat Wales by 48 points and we were beaten by Wales by 45 points with our full team. It's obviously a huge hurdle for this team to overcome this weekend and you've got to set realistic targets for your team."

Italy are missing seven of out top eight first choice props through injury, club commitments and family and disciplinary reasons.

"Italy is an amazing country in that it's got the most fantastic props. Australia would die for five of our props," said Mallett.

"I find players in the Italian champions that walk into any big French club side.

"We've got a guy called (Lorenzo) Cittadini who is sort of the equivalent of a young Os du Randt who I'd selected for this trip. 127kg, 24-years-old and really good around the field and I'm really disappointed he didn't get an opportunity to come because I think South African rugby fans would have enjoyed watching him play.

"He broke his leg very badly in the semi-final, he's out for eight months but we still managed to find four props.

"One guy from Leicester, [Alejandro Moreno], we'll hauled out of retirement for the tour. He's a helluva good guy, he's played for Perpignan, Biarritz, Agen...he's 35 and only to happy to join us. He's like a support player, a cheerleader and everything, hopefully he won't have to get on the field!"