Nations Championship: Italy Defeated on the All Blacks’ Home Turf—A Dream Start Wasn’t Enough
Italrugby suffered its second loss in two games at the Nations Championship, the new global competition featuring the top twelve national rugby teams in the world: Following last week’s loss in Japan, the Azzurri—more predictably—also fell to New Zealand’s All Blacks, with a final score of 47–17 that doesn’t fully tell the story of the match played in Wellington.
The start for the team coached by Gonzalo Quesada was, in fact, a dream come true: just two minutes into the game, a splendid combination between Malik Faissal and Tommaso Menoncello sent the latter into the try zone, Tommaso Allan converted, putting Italy up 7-0. New Zealand’s response, however, was immediate: Darry scored a try, and Love converted to tie the score at 7-7.
Allan put the Azzurri back in front with a penalty kick in the 17th minute, but the home team capitalized on a scramble, with Will Jordan scoring a try and Love kicking the conversion to make it 14–10. The match, however, remains relatively even; the score doesn’t change until halftime, and the home crowd applauds Italy’s performance.
Everything changed in the second half, though: in the first ten minutes, Roigard (41′, converted by Love), De Groot (47′, no extra points), and Jordan again (50′, this time converted by Love) all scored, and suddenly the score was 33-10. The final nail in the coffin came shortly after: a head-to-head collision involving Niccolò Cannone, who was on the receiving end. After an initial yellow card, the video review team ruled in favor of a red card, leaving Italy down to 14 players for twenty minutes—as per the rules—with Cannone himself unable to return to the field.
Jordan scored his third try of the match at 53′, and Love’s conversion—his fourth of the day—made it 40-10, effectively ending the match well ahead of schedule. The Azzurri still tried to fight back, however, and at 56′ scored a try through Leonardo Marin: Paolo Garbisi converted, bringing the score to 40-17, but these were Italy’s last points before another surge by the All Blacks, who—despite being reduced to 14 men themselves due to a yellow card shown to Love in the 70th minute—scored a try through Vaa’i as time expired. Love, fresh out of the sin bin, converted the kick, bringing the final score to 47-17.
Italy thus remains at zero points in the Northern Hemisphere pool with one more match to play in this summer series, on Saturday the 18th against Australia. New Zealand, meanwhile, remains undefeated in the Southern Hemisphere pool, with 10 points from two wins, both of which included an offensive bonus point.
