Italrugby, three high-level test matches confirmed in fall
Italrugby, defined next fall’s opponents
It was defined on Tuesday the schedule of the Autumn Nation Series, the series of international matches, played on European soil, that characterizes the rugby season calendar. Italy, specifically, will be involved in three test matches, two of them against top-level opponents and one however very difficult, but on paper more within the reach of the men coached by Gonzalo Quesada.
The first match involving the Azzurri will be played next Nov. 8 at 6 p.m.40: the opponent will be Australia, defeated in the last previous one played in Florence November 2022 with a final score of 28-27, with two goals by Ange Capuozzo for the national team and the decisive error from the pitch by Donaldson as time expired, which in fact gave one of the greatest satisfactions to Italian oval ball.
A week later, on Saturday, Nov. 15 at 1:40 p.m., the bar will be raised even higher: visiting the Azzurri will be South Africa, winner of the last two editions of the World Cup and defeated only once by Italrugby, also in Florence, with the final score of 20-18 and Italian goals by Van Schalkwyk and Venditti.
The last test match will be played on Nov. 22 at 9:10 p.m.: opponent will be the national team of the Samoa Islands, which will return to Europe after renouncing the 2024 NSAs for economic reasons: just in Italy, twice in Ascoli (2009 and 2014) and once in Padua (2022) came the three Azzurri victories in the previous 9. The Samoans are no longer, for various reasons, those of the '90s or early 2000s, but they remain a formation not to be underestimated, so much so that they defeated the very Azzurri in Apia, 33-25, in the summer of 2024.
