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It has not been a good week. A woeful performance against England was followed up by a woeful performance against a depleted Munster side. No matter how well we play against Italy it won’t fill that hole burning deep inside since the England game. Chances are that Saturday’s game will only make things worse. Australia doesn’t have a history of playing well against Italy, particularly not in Italy. Two years ago in Padua, the Wallabies scraped home to a 30-20 victory after some Quade Cooper razzle-dazzle (joyfully assisted by Stirling Mortlock) after being tied 20-20 coming into the 70th minute. Two years before that we won by just 7 (25-18) in Rome in a particularly uninspiring game. While we have never lost to Italy in test rugby, it has been a long time since we’ve really ‘won’.
It’s time for the Wallabies to put in a dominant performance against Italy and blow them off the park from the get go. This is a job that won’t be made any easier by last weekend’s game where England exposed the Wallabies’ frailties for all to see. Italy will be looking forward to this one and will actually be pretty confident that they can upset the Wallabies. No doubt we can expect the same treatment from Italy and it will be a bit of a sign of whether last weekend was a one off and how much we’ve learnt from it.
The two teams share a World Cup pool and any psychological victory that Italy can take into next year they will fight hard for.
How are they travelling?
Wallabies: Shitty. In hindsight, the writing was on the wall in the game against Wales as our scrum was pulverised and we were beaten at the breakdown. But after a ‘streak’ of two wins away from home, we’ve only gone and fallen off the wagon again. Very few positives could be taken out of last weekend’s game except for a few strong individual performances. The only big positive is that they really can’t play much worse. Or can they?
As for Italy, they are slowly working their way up. The addition of players like Craig Gower (although he won’t be playing on Saturday) and Luke McLean from Australia add a bit more mystique in attack, which is definitely something that Italy have lacked in the years passed. Last weekend Italy came close against Argentina, eventually losing 16-22. While the Argies aren’t at the same level they were at in 2007, they are not to be underestimated. This year’s Six Nations was pretty typical for Italy finishing with a solitary win over Scotland. They came exceedingly close to upsetting England in the tournament, however.
How are they going to win it?
Australia will win this one if they take Italy seriously and put in the hard yards. This is definitely not a game Australia should lose, but they know it and they will be prone to being lazy. Regrettably, the mid-weekers played poorly in Limerick and the threat of losing Test spots isn’t that strong at the moment. Italy are a fairly one-dimensional side and all Australia need to do to win this one is to be accurate in defence and keep up the discipline. If they can pull that off, Italy won’t be able to touch them. Somehow I rather expect to see lazy tackling, lazy discipline and lazy individual efforts with low percentage passes.
Italy come into this match with a carefully mapped blue-print for beating Australia. Be enthusiastic, get the forwards to work as a pack, run players at Quade Cooper all night, and kick over penalties as the Australian players transgress, lazily.
The players who will make the difference...
Well team sheets aren’t up at the moment so it is pretty hard to say. You’d imagine from Italy that Martin Castrogiovanni and Salvatore Perugini will anchor each side of a powerful front row. This will be the one area that Italy will have a clear dominance. The stout, aggressive, passionate pair will give the Ben(n)s trouble all night and will hope to get the same kind of reward as Wales did a fortnight ago. Sergio Parisse deserves a notable mention as Italy’s only other world standard player. I imagine that he is very much looking forward to running the ball at Cooper off the back of a dominant scrum.
For Australia this comes down to Cooper and Elsom. Cooper just needs to make his tackles. Not much more needs to be said on that. If he makes most of them, we win. Enough said. As for Elsom, I thought he played fairly well last weekend but I am not convinced he captained well. Against Italy his leadership will really be on show; can he inspire his team to make mincemeat out of the Italians? Because anything less will be a disappointment. Before the test against England last weekend I saw Lewis Moody charged up and breathing a bit of fire into the team and I thought jeez this is definitely not going to be an easy test. You could feel the determination just sitting on a couch watching TV on the other side of the world. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Elsom do that and if he can’t, it’s time to think about change.
The Outcome
It’s going to be dour. You are going to wish you hadn’t stayed up late or got up early to watch it. It isn’t going to come close filling the disappointment from last weekend. If your television had feelings, they would be well and truly hurt by the things you will be yelling at it. But at least the Wallabies will win. Wallabies by 12 with a last minute try to round off a lazy win.
Teams:
Italy: TBA
Squad:
Forwards: Robert Barbieri, Mauro Bergamasco, Martin Castrogiovanni, Lorenzo Cittadini, Carlo Antonio Del Fava, Santiago Dellape, Paul Derbyshire, Quintin Geldenhuys, Leonardo Ghiraldini, Andrea Lo Cicero, Fabio Ongaro, Sergio Parisse (capt), Salvatore Perugini, Alessandro Zanni
Backs: Tommaso Benvenuti, Mirco Bergamasco, Riccardo Bocchino, Gonzalo Canale, Pablo Canavosio, Edoardo Gori, Andrea Masi, Luke McLean, Luciano Orquera, Alberto Sgarbi
Australia:
1. James Slipper (Queensland Reds)
2. Stephen Moore (Brumbies)
3. Ben Alexander (Brumbies)
4. Rob Simmons (Queensland Reds)
5. Nathan Sharpe (Western Force)
6. Rocky Elsom (c) (Brumbies)
7. David Pocock (Western Force)
8. Ben McCalman (Western Force)
9. Luke Burgess (NSW Waratahs)
10. Quade Cooper (Queensland Reds)
11. Drew Mitchell (NSW Waratahs)
12. Berrick Barnes (NSW Waratahs)
13. Adam Ashley-Cooper (Brumbies)
14. Lachie Turner (NSW Waratahs)
15. Kurtley Beale (NSW Waratahs)
Reserves:
16. Tatafu Polota-Nau (NSW Waratahs)
17. Benn Robinson (NSW Waratahs)
18. Mark Chisholm (Brumbies)
19. Matt Hodgson (Western Force)
20. Will Genia (Queensland Reds)
21. Matt Giteau (Brumbies)
22. Pat McCabe (Brumbies)
Referee: Christophe Berdos (Fra)