Women’s Italy: a chiaroscuro Six Nations and a game yet to be deciphered

No, it wasn’t the Six Nations that Italy expected. Quite simply, the objective declared on the eve of the match – the podium – was not achieved, but above all the Azzurre finished for the second consecutive year with just one victory in 5 matches. Not a failure, as also underlined by coach Raineri, but certainly a performance below expectations and above all below the potential of the players who took to the field. Italy is going through a long phase of change, it is trying to introduce new ideas and new gaming perspectives which, however, are producing alternating results.

What does this Six Nations leave

This Six Nations certainly leaves some positive things: first of all, Dublin’s historic victory against Ireland, an opponent who even in previous years was within the reach of the Azzurre, who however finally managed to dispel a perhaps more mental taboo how technical. That Easter afternoon also saw Italy’s best performance in the Tournament, perhaps the only day in which Raineri’s team really managed to express its full potential, holding up physically and sending Ireland into crisis in open play, despite some errors (the first 15 minutes and the interception suffered by Rigoni at the end) which risked compromising a well-deserved success.

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Generally speaking, Italy’s Six Nations had started well: the avalanche of points expected from England had not arrived in Parma thanks to an amazing defense which held the match with the top teams at 0-0 for over half an hour, then the success in Ireland had made the Azzurre very favorites for the race for the podium. There was an initial setback against France, especially in the first half, but considering the value of the French team, the Paris match could also have been quickly filed away on the shelf of missteps without too many problems.

The real blow was in Parma, with Scotland capable of reining in the Azzurri in a match that became increasingly more difficult and which eventually slipped out of Italy’s hands. In Cardiff, unfortunately, there was a perhaps undeserved defeat, but still disappointing considering that Wales up to that point had played a very lackluster Six Nations: Italy could and had to prove superior to a team in crisis and with few ideas that it wasn’t for the doorsteps and the advancing melee, but that wasn’t the case. Both against Scotland and Wales we saw a technically superior Italy who however found themselves sucked into a type of match that was not congenial to them, without being able to modify the script along the way.

A stalemate

In the end it always comes back to the origin: the best things are seen when the Azzurre play by heart, widen the game and create numerical superiority and then make their way with the quality of their interpreters, Muzzo and D’Incà above all, but with a women’s rugby that evolves at the speed of light (just compare the rhythms and work of the players in the static phases of a match in the pre-pandemic era with those of now to notice the difference) can no longer be enough, and over time it will be enough less and less.

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The impression is that the Italian game is at a standstill. In every fundamental, good things alternate with others that don’t work: many ideas, even beautiful ones, that get lost in a magma of execution errors and unfortunate decisions in key moments. Certainly a lot also depended on individual inaccuracies, from Stefan’s outsized pass to Muzzo which nullified Italy’s best action in Cardiff to Parma’s 21 handling errors against Scotland, but what we need to understand is whether it is just a matter of a question of time or whether the change will have to be structural, even taking the risk of changing direction at a tactical level if this continues to not work.

The impression is that the opponents face Italy knowing full well what they will do: they kick deep knowing that Ostuni Minuzzi will attack ball in hand, they cover the spaces out wide knowing that inevitably the Azzurre will go looking for Muzzo and D’Incà (or Granzotto and Ostuni itself) at the sides of the pitch, and they know that by hiding the ball from Italy they will be able to gain the upper hand in the physical battle and above all in the static phases, where unfortunately there was not the leap in quality that needed to be made and it will have to be done in order to remain competitive at these levels.

Francesco Palma

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