The other teams (France and Italy)

Thought it worth starting a new thread to cover France and Italy in the 6N

Saturday's teams

Italy: Trulla; Sperandio, Zanon, Brex, Ioane; Garbisi, Varney; Traore, Bigi, Riccioni, Lazzaroni, Sisi, Negri, Meyer, Lamaro.

Replacements: Lucchesi, Fischetti, Zilocchi, Cannone, Ruzza, Mbanda, Palazzani, Canna.

France: Dulin; Thomas, Vincent, Fickou, Villiere; Jalibert, Dupont; Baille, Marchand, Haouas, Le Roux, Willemse, Cretin, Alldritt, Ollivon (capt).

Replacements: Bourgarit, Gros, Aldegheri, Taofifenua, Jelonch, Serin, Carbonel, Penaud.


Ioane qualifies by residency but hails from Australia. He's the nephew of Digby Ioane.

Varney is a 19yr old scrum half playing for Gloucester and has an Italian mum. That is a very young Azurri half back combo.

Very good halfbacks though, from what I saw in the AIs.

Varney is an interesting story, to be fair, with being Welsh Qualified and all that.

France’s side looks handy.

As I mentioned on the england thread no Woki is a surprise to me despite the lack of 80 mins at full tilt which I think lost mentioned. Hes a guy who is going to be a pain in Englands side for the next decade at least.

Yeah why is Woki not there? Is he injured...

Woki - I can only hope one of our french contributors steps in. All I can see is that he was not in the original squad but was brought in as a replacement for Aldritt who is due some knee surgery.

That would suggest he's not seen as first choice, yet.

Great to see a ref ping hands on the floor like that.

Italy look fun for a change

Their halfbacks are so lively.

Choker that. Was about to write credit to Italy for striking back.

Varney is a good little player, such crisp and fast passing too. I’m not entirely sure why he chose to play for Italy though.

RiscaGame wrote:Great to see a ref ping hands on the floor like that.

Great consistency with it though

mikey_dragon wrote:Varney is a good little player, such crisp and fast passing too. I’m not entirely sure why he chose to play for Italy though.

Been really admiring his passing. I think he would’ve had a great chance of involvement for us, because I don’t think we have a 9 with service like that. Plus he’s good around the park too.

I know its one game and its V Italy...but france are going to be huge contenders for the next world cup..

Power, physicality, size, pace, skill, youth they have the lot.

Yeah France are handy. Italy don’t deserve to be in the same tournament.

France really are building nicely. Week 2 and 4 will give a good indication of where they are at, playing away to their likely rivals for the tournament.

Scottrf wrote:Yeah France are handy. Italy don’t deserve to be in the same tournament.

Italy's defence is poor and there has been some moments of magic from France but the score flatters a really good French side. Let's see how the other nations look v France.

Just the eternal question of how they'll self destruct.

French seem so seamless in turning in attack. I think the scariest think is this team has a good two WC cycles in them.

Italy's young players look good and missing podeldri is massive for them. They are as has been said a bit nervous in the 22 and then compound their errors

Is Dupont at 24 now considered the best scrum half in the World. He is great as a 9, runs support lines like a winger, tackles and if needed he can kick points.

Impressed with Jalibert as well as Dupont. Scary to think that France also have Jordan Joseph coming through at Number 8.

A good point was made that France kicked a fair bit to score tries but few kicks all game were box kicks. The intelligence to kick a dink over the top for Fickou and the kick by the 11. Their kicks had a purpose rather than the kick and hope

Makes the case to cut back to 5 nations rather than invite in more no hopers. Poor display from Italy who have at time been a thorn in Frances side and usually put up a bit more of a fight at home.

More signs that this young group of French players is a step up from previous squads in terms of attitude and preparation, hard to tell how good a side is from hammering C class opposition but post world cup a full strength France has only been undone by a discipline meltdown. Have to remain joint favourites for the title with England (who have the better fixtures for a slam)

Getting ahead but thinking to the world cup the group should have a healthy number of caps and time on the pitch together and have had some opportunity to grow their game further. Its not hard to imagine France being amongst the favourites if they can keep the clubs onside and avoid overworking players.

Brendan wrote:A good point was made that France kicked a fair bit to score tries but few kicks all game were box kicks.  The intelligence to kick a dink over the top for Fickou and the kick by the 11.  Their kicks had a purpose rather than the kick and hope

Yeah they kicked more possession than England did in the final too, the issue I've had with Englands supposed excessive kicking in recent times is that its seemed to lack chase up and teams are defending it better knowing the box kicks coming. Hope to see more effective kicking from England and them taking the flexible option if teams are covering for it and leaving the line weaker.

What this current France set up has shown is that the FFR and the NLR have found a really good balance. When you consider how many of the 2 u20 winning sides have already been intergrated in the clubs match day 23 compare to England and New Zealand.

They have agreed to giving the union more access to the international setup. While there may be some issue win number of games players can play it means they will be giving more players a chance to push each other as we saw in the last game of the ANC

Italy look handy going forward but there are always some errors in their somewhere, and France exploited that.

Its a shame sometimes how dependent the game can be on small things

Unless Wales have improved massively I can see France sticking 50 on Wales in Paris. Italy had good numbers on attack other than points scored (having a try disallowed). France break quickly and in numbers so expect high scores from France v everyone except England. Not sure how many can match them

In the European Cup the French teams were much more aggressive in attack and tried to move ball quicker.

There has been a bit of a mind change but you still have to match them physically or they will steam roll you. Not sure Ireland have the players to do it next week as we have few players that are physical and skilful.

lostinwales wrote:Italy look handy going forward but there are always some errors in their somewhere, and France exploited that.

Its a shame sometimes how dependent the game can be on small things

Like Italy being rubbish? Saw the same all Autumn, the problem is Italy are forced to play in a way they just aren't good enough to get away with and cough up scores to teams who are good enough. They did get on top of England a bit but as soon as the better team got their act together Italy folded. For these weaker teams having physical parity in the pack can be far more useful than a couple of backs who can look good running the ball in their own half, and Italy really don't have that now. They used to have some class forwards who would push for places in the other 5 nations, not sure that's the case anymore.

Shipping 50 points is a lot of small differences.

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