Italy v Scotland, 22 August

First topic message reminder :

 
ITALY v SCOTLAND
22 August 2015
KO: 19:00 BST
Stadio Olimpico di Torino, Turin

Live on BT Sport

Referee: JP Doyle (England)
Assistant Referees: [TBC]
TMO: [TBC]

A. Head to Head

23 Played 23
8 Won 15
0 Drawn 0
15 Lost 8
416 Points 524

B. Recent Form

28 February 2015
BT Murrayfield, Edinburgh
19 – 22 to Italy

22 February 2014
Stadio Olimpico, Rome
20 – 21 to Scotland

22 June 2013
Loftus Versfeld, Pretoria, South Africa
30 – 29 to Scotland

9 February 2013
Murrayfield, Edinburgh
34 – 10 to Scotland

17 March 2012
Stadio Olimpico, Rome
13 – 6 to Italy

20 August 2011
Murrayfield, Edinburgh
23 – 12 to Scotland

19 March 2011
Murrayfield, Edinburgh
21 – 8 to Scotland

C. Teams

ITALY

15 Andrea Masi
14 Leonardo Sarti
13 Tommaso Benvenuti
12 Gonzalo Garcia
11 Giovambattista Venditti
10 Tommaso Allan
9 Guglielmo Palazzani

8 Samuela Vunisa
7 Alessandro Zanni
6 Francesco Minto
5 Valerio Bernabó
4 Quintin Geldenhuys (c)
3 Lorenzo Cittadini
2 Davide Giazzon
1 Matias Aguero

16 Leonardo Ghiraldini
17 Michele Rizzo
18 Martin Castrogiovanni
19 Marco Bortolami
20 Mauro Bergamasco
21 Marcello Violi
22 Carlo Canna
23 Luke McLean

SCOTLAND

15 Greig Tonks (Edinburgh Rugby) – 5 caps
14 Sean Lamont (Glasgow Warriors) – 94 caps; 12 tries, 60 points
13 Richie Vernon (Glasgow Warriors) – 21 caps
12 Matt Scott (Edinburgh Rugby) – 26 caps, 3 tries, 15 points
11 Rory Hughes (Glasgow Warriors) – uncapped
10 Duncan Weir (Glasgow Warriors) – 18 caps; 1 try, 5 cons, 6 pens, 1 drop
09 Sam Hidalgo-Clyne (Edinburgh Rugby) – 6 caps

01 Gordon Reid (Glasgow Warriors) – 9 caps
02 Stuart McInally (Edinburgh Rugby) – uncapped
03 Mike Cusack (Glasgow Warriors) – 1 cap
04 Richie Gray (Castres) – 44 caps; 2 tries, 10 points
05 Grant Gilchrist CAPTAIN (Edinburgh Rugby) – 9 caps, 1 try, 5 points
06 Alasdair Strokosch (Perpignan) – 44 caps, 2 tries, 10 points
07 John Hardie (unattached) – uncapped
08 Adam Ashe (Glasgow Warriors) – 5 caps

16 Ross Ford (Edinburgh Rugby) – 86 caps; 2 tries, 10 points
17 Alasdair Dickinson (Edinburgh Rugby) – 44 caps, 2 tries, 10 points
18 Willem Nel (Edinburgh Rugby) – uncapped
19 Jim Hamilton (Saracens) – 62 caps; 1 try, 5 points
20 Hamish Watson (Edinburgh Rugby) – 1 cap
21 Henry Pyrgos (Glasgow Warriors) – 14 caps; 3 tries, 15 points
22 Peter Horne (Glasgow Warriors) – 8 caps; 1 try, 1 con, 1 pen 10 points
23 Damien Hoyland (Edinburgh Rugby) – uncapped

Scotland struggling for possession, mainly due to penalties and scrum issues

What a frustrating first half.

The Italians are totally dictating play and we're just passively kicking back to them

The stand out players have been SHC and Richie Gray.

McInally has been trying a bit too hard and Cusack keeps getting pinged in the scrum.

Italy playing well putting Scotland under pressure. They (Italy) just need to find that little bit exact passing( not knocking on)in the tackle. That cross field kick might have paid off, if the winger had been expecting it in the first place.

I hope BT have a load of adverts in reserve. The first half was gash and there are absolutely no highlights to show or to talk about.
Can anyone say when Strokosch last did anything remotely useful in a Scotland top? He is utterly anonymous. Hardie is putting himself about well, though.

majesticimperialman wrote:Italy playing well putting Scotland under pressure. They (Italy) just need to find that little bit exact passing( not knocking on)in the tackle. That cross field kick might have paid off, if the winger had been expecting it in the first place.

That's what I mean, there was a communication breakdown at some point. Did the winger call it? Didn't seem like it.

Am I right in saying this is more or less a full strength Italian side?

We seem to lack any form of go forward from the pack at the moment, Hardie was impressive to begin with but has really dropped off as the half went on.

Well pretty frustrating 1st half - for both teams. Scotland need to find some possession and field position somehow in the 2nd half.

Interesting we got pinged for offside at the end there, when there have been Italian players in front of their kickers on most restarts and a couple of in field kicks.

Really need to put some phases together in attack this half, which means we need some ball! Penalty count has been awful again, hopefully that can improve too

The first half has been a massive disappointment. No Scotland players really putting their hand up. Although on saying that Hughes has been great on the kick chase.

Agree with you llama but, as you say, we actually need to have the ball

I was just wondering, is there an IRB/World Rugby ruling that says every Scotland-v-Italy match must be devoid of skill?

Anyone want to hear a joke?










































These Guys are all paid to play rugby.

You may be onto something there, because this is worse than schoolboy right now! I realise the ball is slippery but this is beyond a joke

The only thing I can think of comparable to this is when you reach the last 5 minutes of a game, and it's hot and you've thrashed the opposition/ been thrashed and just no one cares anymore and there's a humorous element to it. This isn't that, these players want to play in the world cup supposedly.

Bit of a curate's egg. We're looking alright defensively but not really creating much offensively. By which I mean we are not controlling the ball or field position for any length of time.
Tonks must be frustrated. Hopefully we'll start playing as units rather than individuals now.

Or a rugby tour where you're massively hungover and the game is only a warmup to the next session on the beers. But again, this isn't that!

WP Nel dominant first scrum!

The possession stats for this game will be embarrassing

I wonder if Nel and Hardie are now regretting committing themselves to Scotland. This is guff and a big step backwards from last week

Jeez Doyle never pings for holding on. Hardie has had hands on the ball at least 6 times and Doyle never blows.

madmaccas wrote:Jeez Doyle never pings for holding on. Hardie has had hands on the ball at least 6 times and Doyle never blows.

I came here to say this, but someone already has

I'm only half watching this but was it as sh!te as this last week?

George Carlin wrote:I'm only half watching this but was it as sh!te as this last week?

No

I thought we were cracking down on clearing out round the head, are the touch judges here for decoration

Another great position wasted- Italy look to be clearly the better team, but they shoot themselves in the foot again. This time with a dumb penalty.

Probably time for Peter Horne now...

Notch wrote:Another great position wasted- Italy look to be clearly the better team, but they shoot themselves in the foot again. This time with a dumb penalty.

Not sure Italy have been good. I think Scotland have been complete s h i t

I don't think Italy have been good, just better than Scotland. Still I'd back Scotland to shade it if they can be clinical like Italy aren't.

Why go for goal? Useless tubs of lard like Weir can practice kicking any time. "Live" lineouts on their 5m line are what we are going to learn more from

I think we are getting worse

A few of the Scotland players seem to be playing their way out of contention.

Bit of a curate's egg. We're looking alright defensively but not really creating much offensively. By which I mean we are not controlling the ball or field position for any length of time.
Tonks must be frustrated. Hopefully we'll start playing as units rather than individuals now.

And a general observation, if there are some many penalties being committed especially in the front row, Doyle should start sin binning folk

InjuredYetAgain wrote:Why go for goal? Useless tubs of lard like Weir can practice kicking any time. "Live" lineouts on their 5m line are what we are going to learn more from

Surely before a knock out competition like the world cup you want to be practising knock out rugby?

Ross Ford seems to have picked up where he left off

What's the score? Is it really 22-9? When did that happen?

Ah. Scoreboard guy has put the prosecco down and changed it to 12-9.

George Carlin wrote:What's the score? Is it really 22-9? When did that happen?

Nah it's 12 - 9

We keep coughing up such cheap ball 

Strokosh has made about -5 metres off about 10 attempted carries

TheMildlyFranticLlama wrote:

InjuredYetAgain wrote:Why go for goal? Useless tubs of lard like Weir can practice kicking any time. "Live" lineouts on their 5m line are what we are going to learn more from

Surely before a knock out competition like the world cup you want to be practising knock out rugby?

Don't agree with that at all. Competitive lineouts 5m from the opponents line are much more likely to occur than watching our 3rd choice stand off miss a kick at goal

Finally! Good hands to keep the ball alive, even if it's was dodgy!

Nicely worked try by Pyrgos (good play from Matt Scott too) but hardly deserved

Notch wrote:I don't think Italy have been good, just better than Scotland. Still I'd back Scotland to shade it if they can be clinical like Italy aren't.

But there might be a late twist... I doubt it, Italy haven't been incisive or composed but you never know.

Oh thank god for that.

Surely Weir and Strokosh have played their way out of the squad.

InjuredYetAgain wrote:

TheMildlyFranticLlama wrote:

InjuredYetAgain wrote:Why go for goal? Useless tubs of lard like Weir can practice kicking any time. "Live" lineouts on their 5m line are what we are going to learn more from

Surely before a knock out competition like the world cup you want to be practising knock out rugby?

Don't agree with that at all. Competitive lineouts 5m from the opponents line are much more likely to occur than watching our 3rd choice stand off miss a kick at goal

I'd counter that by saying that in the tournament if we're in a position where it is 9-9 and we have a penalty in that position it would be madness not to go for the posts. It doesn't matter who is standing in the 10 position at the time, as we don't know what will happen with injuries. We need to build the mindset of winning games and we are badly out of practise at that!

Things have certainly picked up since Pyrgos replaced SHC

FFS I just switched off in disgust at that utter shambles.

We then score.

Still time for us to beat ourselves, mind.