What's happening
Italy - Canada

October 21 Match

WHAT'S HAPPENING? (posted 22nd October 2003)
When the Canucks came out to face the Italians last night in Canberra I thought the Italians were probably going to win fairly comfortably, but Italy's win 19-14 was far from what I'd call a comfortable victory.

Italy were badly the win - in their Pool D comp New Zealand are sitting pretty on top of the points table and will almost certainly progress through to the quarter finals, but the second spot is still up for grabs - but Italy had to win last night in order to have a crack at Wales for the quarter final spot.

Italy kicked off the first half and despite some good linebreaks by Italy initially, their ball control wasn't too good. Perhaps the earlier rain in Canberra and the chilly 15 deg celius conditions were making it a tad difficult for the players to hand onto the ball. I don't know though - that's bit of a lame excuse at this level of play - I've seen under 9s sloshing around on muddy paddocks without having too much difficulty handling the conditions. (This could be because nine year old boys love mucking down and getting filthy in the mud... :)) When Italy stuffed up a scrum in the eleventh minute of play, Jared Barker had a penalty goal kick which he potted over for the first points of the match. 3-0 in favour of Canada.

In the nineteenth minute it looked like Italy might cross for a try when Persico made a good linebreak and passed off to flanker de Rossi who charged towards the line. He was just pipped before the line though by the Canadian defence and sent into touch.

Rod Snow from Italy then did a really silly thing in the scrum by pulling it straight down. You know, you'd think if you wanted to do illegal play type moves, you'd try to be very inconspicuous - here's a tip for Rod Snow - just because you're looking at a pile of flesh in a scrum don't think that the ref or the cameras aren't watching you. Doh! Anyway, Rima Wakamura slotted the resulting penalty goal and the scores were 3 a piece with a quarter of the match gone. The Canadians discipline was dodgy as well though - their number 4 penalised fo rnot rolling away in the tackle gave Wakamura another three pointer attempt - but he missed it. The Italians while patchy in general play had their lineouts working well though winning 9 to the Canuck's 1 by this stage of the match.

Canada then gave the Italians a penalty kick attempt when they came in from the side in the ruck. You have to come in through the gate and being one of the most basic rules of rugby I've been surprised by the number of players throughout this tournament who've infringed this way! Wakamura's kick was successful and the score stood at 6-3. Canada tried to hit back with some good linebreaks, and might have had a real try scoring opportunity before the break if they hadn't lost the ball in one of their lineouts... AGAIN!

Into the second half the Canucks got a penalty goal to lock the score at 9-9, however their centre, Marco di Girolamo was sin binned shortly after by Paddy O'Brian, the NZ ref, for slowing down the play. Uh oh - one man down. Italy jumped on the opportunity, finally scoring a try in the 56th minute of the match when Parisse crossed the line. The conversion put Italy in front 19-9. The Canadians weren't finished though, and eleven minutes later, their fullback, Fyffe (an Aussie by the way!) broke through the Italian defence to score for his team. Canada, realising that they had nothing to lose - well except the game, took it up to the Azzurri, electing to kick for touch and keeping the pressure right on them. As a result, Barker got another go at a penalty goal but fluffed it when it hit the posts. The Italians were scrambling to hold their lead right up until the full time whistle - Ongaro was sin binned a minute prior to full time, but unfortunatley, the Canadians had left their run a bit too late - game over!

Italy gets 4 points for the win, and the Canadians awarded 1 point for keeping within the 7 point score margin. Canada's RWC hopes now look dim. The Italians will have to win against Wales this Saturday, and if they do so, then Wales' quarter finals hopes will rest on them beating New Zealand - not impossible, but a big ask!