One victory and two knockouts playing on equal terms: a change in the Italian mentality also in the words of captain Lamaro. “No more alibis and no more honorable defeats. Now we want more.” Quesada’s Azzurri believe it
Even more than the results, the victories, the competitive matches against the battleships, the truly great achievement of Italrugby was changing the narrative towards it. Michele Lamaro’s words after the 33-8 defeat against France explain it perfectly, after having been in the game for 70 minutes (partial score of 19-8) and having only succumbed to numerical inferiority. A match that could be considered the “usual” test of pride against an objectively very strong opponent: “We don’t care about pride anymore. We want more” replied the blue captain. This sentence is the tombstone on a narrative that once served to keep Italy attached to the Six Nations train, but which has now become too narrow: the honorable defeats, with heads held high, the pride of having played it out. And in the same way the victories described include feats, miracles. Gonzalo Quesada himself after the victory over Scotland in 2024 (the first coup of his management) wanted to be clear: for him these results are not feats, but a consequence of the work and performance of the boys. Nothing more. In this Six Nations, Italy beat Scotland, came close to drawing against Ireland (getting a bonus point) and then lost in Lille against the French battleship. In other times it would have been dripping fat, today it is a good path, but no more: “Looking at the first three matches we carry too many regrets, we no longer want to settle” said Lamaro himself in view of the last two matches of the tournament, against England and Wales.
enough honorable defeats
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And yes, maybe once upon a time the Azzurri would have also been satisfied with an “honorable defeat” against a battleship that is slapping everyone in front of them: with 15 points out of 15, France could win the Six Nations even with a day to spare. Today things are different: Italy takes to the field to really try to win every match, with the humility of those who know that certain teams are still far away (and France is one of these) but also with the awareness that they are no longer the Cinderella of the Six Nations and that the others must be faced head on: it happened in the defeat against Ireland, with the Azzurri they perhaps deserved a draw, with Scotland and Australia (jokes), it happened several times with Wales, with 3 victories in the last 4 matches. After all, it also happened in November against South Africa: Italy played a great match against the reigning world champions, put them in difficulty and with a bit of “braccino” they even wasted the opportunity to play until the end, losing 32-14 and with the usual two tries in the final to extend the score beyond measure, in a match very similar to the one in Lille. In that case, during the match Italy had been even more dangerous, and really scared the Springboks: “Right now I’m experiencing mixed emotions. I’m happy and satisfied with many things about our performance, but I’m also disappointed because we had built a match that we could have won” said Quesada. When has an Italrugby coach ever been able to say something like that before, after playing against South Africa? Moreover, the Springboks coach himself, Rassie Erasmus, let slip a prediction: “Italy is now a podium team in the Six Nations”. Moreover, France’s coach himself, Fabien Galthié, had great words for the Azzurri: “And to think that someone wanted to exclude them from the Six Nations… luckily that didn’t happen. Italy can try to beat all the British national teams and those from the Southern Hemisphere. It’s a success story in the development of world rugby.”
the change of mentality
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It is clear that neither Quesada nor Lamaro think they are at the level of the big names in Europe and the world, despite having made a big step forward. And this doesn’t mean that in the future there won’t be some other heavy defeats, some bad matches: because the level is very high and all this is part of the journey. Moreover, Quesada did not lose his composure even after the 45-0 defeat suffered by South Africa in Port Elizabeth last summer, with a reworked and experimental lineup. Indeed, precisely because the Azzurri are fully aware of this, they follow Gonzalo Quesada’s first real mantra, repeated from the first day he set foot in Italy and repeated before and after every match by the coach, the captain and any other player: “The result depends on the performance, because only the performance is what can allow us to compete at these levels, to arrive at the end tied in score and to try to win the matches”. What has changed, however, is the way in which Italy experiences the entire context of the Six Nations and great rugby, and this too was explained by Lamaro on the eve of France-Italy: “In my first year as captain everyone asked me ‘What do you think of Italy outside the Six Nations?’ Perception matters, and it matters a lot to us too. That’s what Gonzalo was trying to explain earlier when talking about the trust we’ve built. Now I’m in my fifth year as captain, but I didn’t grow up with this confidence: I grew up with the idea of being last in the table. And the thing I’m most proud of is seeing an 18-year-old boy come into the group today and think ‘I’m playing with a team that can win the tournament one day’. This is exactly what we have tried to do in recent years. We tried to inspire the people around us, to inspire young people who are growing up, giving them opportunities and a belief that we didn’t have: that of really being able to do it. This is what we want to create.”
no alibis
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Once upon a time we talked about performance as a way to put our hands forward, to be able to say “we lost, but we played well”. Today, however, performance is the most effective means to achieve results: this is also part of that battle against the culture of alibis that Quesada, exactly as Velasco did (and the two see each other often), is carrying on. “We have to pay attention to the things we can control, nothing else” the Italian coach often says: the result therefore depends on the performance, and if it doesn’t arrive it’s because mistakes have been made. And injuries weren’t an alibi either. Italy arrived at this Six Nations without 9 possible starters, all players who could very well have entered – if not in the top 15 – at least in the list of 23 between the field and the bench. Yet, as Quesada himself explained, it should never have become a justification: “We never talked about injuries. We were always confident in the group we had available. For some guys who played less it was an opportunity to demonstrate their level, and they did it well.” Against Scotland the third and fourth scrum-half in the hierarchy were on the pitch (Fusco and Alessandro Garbisi, with Varney and Page-Relo injured) and the third and fourth fullbacks (Pani and Marin, with Capuozzo and Allan out). Yet neither the coach nor the players ever spoke of it as a problem. And finally, there is obviously the question of referees, the alibi par excellence, and here too Quesada gave two answers between Scotland and Ireland that convey the idea all too well: “During the week we train with a professional referee, and I ask him to blow the whistle for everything, because we have to get used to any decision.” The second, after the defeat against Ireland in which there had also been some controversial decisions: “I don’t want to talk about referees because if I did I would overshadow all the good things the boys did today. And it wouldn’t be right.”
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