Italy: who is Martin Page-Relo, the new squad of the Azzurri

Kieran Crowley has added a new face to the Azzurri group. For the training session for the last two matches of the 2023 Six Nations against Wales and Scotland, the coach has called up Martin Page-Relo, the 24-year-old scrum-half under Toulouse.

Born in the nearby Gers department, he is eligible for Italy thanks to his maternal grandparents. He has never represented France in any youth selection. He started playing for Stade Toulousain when he was 13 years old.

Leaving the Espoirs circuit, the youth category that precedes the adult one in France, he was on loan at Carcassone for a season in ProD2.

Read also: Six Nations 2023, Italy’s squad for Wales and Scotland

He is a technically competent player, physically small (he does not reach 1.75 m) but very quick and elusive, with excellent footholds and a good offensive nose, capable of running excellent internal support lines. In the French cadet championship he was able to win a lot of attention: in 2020/2021 he played 19 games, scoring 1 try. Carcassone had an excellent championship that season, finishing seventh at the foot of the barrage area for promotion to the Top 14.

Back on base, Page-Relo faced a crowding of scrum-halfs, with Alexi Bales and Gaetan Germain battling him for the starting position. backups by Antoine Dupont. He still managed to find space for him, climbing the hierarchies: in 2021/2022 he totaled 11 appearances, including 4 as a starter, between the Champions League and the championship, scoring a try in this case too.

Read also: Italy: the medical bulletin on Ange Capuozzo

This season he has already played more or less the same, with 9 appearances of which 5 from the first minute, despite failing to establish himself definitively as an alternative to Dupont, a role he shares with newcomer Paul Graou. Next year he will move to Lyon, having signed a two-year contract with the club.

In the context of the blue squad, he can be a quality addition to a role that has youth and talent from his side, but where all the candidates to wear the number 9 shirt have some gaps to work on. The player from Toulouse can especially add a tactical dimension to his foot which is perhaps where Varney, Garbisi and Fusco leave something to be desired.

Perhaps Page-Relo won’t be ready to play right away in the final of this Six Nations, as he has never worked with the staff and has to get into a peculiar offensive game system, but he has the means to stay in the group and aim to be a protagonist in blue.

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