La Marseillaise vs Il Canto degli Italiani

We have a clear winner, partially because the Italians made sure the French anthem was way softer…. Il Canto takes the early prize.

Two scrums with the 10% lighter Italian pack doing well and then they give away a silly try with a kick charge down. 

Brilliant try by Capuozzo standing up Alldritt ….after some truly silly rugby by Italy. 

Italy need to learn to tackle

Rather dubious penalty try to Italy …basically an even game and a yellow card advantage, Italy amazingly in the game.

Liking Italy attack great start to the 2nd half and seem to  have improved in the tackle as well.

They replace their only Ferrari….is this wise?

They do overdo the no look pass, but they are doing well at the breakdown. Good fun.

The Italian scrum half is mistake machine…but they have the lead!

Yep, they caused us major problems on the EOYT until Kwagga disrupted then on the ground and created some decisive attacks. Their defence seemed to give up after that. Passive and shapeless. If they can pull this off that'd be quite a shakeup for France 

Wales for the wooden spoon if Italy keep playing like this. Very entertaining game , almost didn't pop down to watch as was expecting the frogs to do this at a canter

France regains the lead after one too many errant passes by Italy….on come the Italian bomb squad.

Finally they get Varney off.

In the end the Frogs didn’t canter….they won. But is this the best team in the world? It sure didn’t look like it….more like a QF loser.

Even with the loss Italy have to be happy with that preformance.

Little bit of luck and they would have taken that.

Italy has the capacity to be a bit more disruptive than usual. It's the kind of contest where you can get sucked into a slugfest. The Boks managed to add some gloss with acres of space after Kwagga broke the game open. Right now, there is still no great test nation out there, but we still lag behind the teams that make up the top four to five.