Ireland had on the pitch 15/23 of the team that beat theItaly U20 at the 6 Nations category this spring, Italy had even lined up on Saturday 19/23 of that training. In light of these numbers, the heavy knockout (55-15) suffered in South Africa byItaly U20 in the debut at the World Rugby U20 Championship against Ireland. The head coach tries to give a comment Santamaria and the captain Botturi.
In his first official match as head coach, Roberto Santamaria analyses the final 55-15 without filters:
“Definitely not the match we expected. At the beginning we managed to stay in the match, then we conceded four fouls in the middle of the pitch allowing them to enter our 22, and there they scored all four times, which we knew was among their most important skills given that at Six Nations have been deadly in terms of effectiveness in that area of the game.”
“Frankly, a bonus point was within our reach because we had opportunities to score in the second half, but we made too many mistakes: we will study what happened very carefully, now we focus on Australia, another very difficult match for sure, as a World Cup in general is.”.
Also for Captain Jacopo Botturi it was a different match than the one imagined on the eve:
“We expected a more physical match, but instead they focused on speed, forcing us into a very forced defense. They had 80% of the possession and the little we had we often wasted with mistakes that we had to avoid, we lost the game there.”
The next match is on Thursday 4 July at the Athlone Stadium against Australia, who beat Georgia with a clear 35 to 11 in the other Pool B match.
WORLD RUGBY U20 CHAMPIONSHIP
Pool A: France, New Zealand, Wales, Spain
Pool B: Ireland, Australia, ItaliaGeorgia
Pool C: South Africa, England, Argentina, Fiji
Qualifying stage
Day 1: Saturday 29 June Italy U20 v Ireland U20 55-15 (Cape Town Stadium, k.o. 16:30)
Day 2: Thursday 4 July Italy U20 v Australia U20 (Athlone Stadium, k.o. 19:30)
Day 3: Tuesday 9th July Italy U20 v Georgia U20 (Danie Craven Stadium, 4:30pm)
Direct elimination phase
Day 4: Sunday 14th July (Playoffs)
Day 5: Friday 19 July (Finals)
