IT
EN
You judge an international season the way you judge an exam: not with a straight average, but with a weighted one. That is how Mario of Pillole Ovali closes the book on Italy’s year, and it is also the sanest way out of the emotional tunnel of a summer that ended badly.
The calendar played a strange trick: the season opened with a win over Australia in Udine and closed against Australia again, in Perth, in a 57-10 collapse.
Which matches actually count?
Not all of them equally. For Mario the big wins outweigh the worst defeat, and beating England counts for more than losing to Japan or Australia. The logic is simple: November comes when southern hemisphere sides are at the end of their season, July when ours are. The real examinations remain the Six Nations and the World Cup.
By that measure the verdict is positive: a strong Six Nations lifts the whole year, even with a summer tour that produced zero points from three matches.
The summer tour: “It is what we deserved”
No discount, though, on the three defeats to Japan, New Zealand and Australia. Mario thinks zero points is the honest return, and the Nations Championship as a trophy leaves him cold: he likes test matches for their own sake and would find the competition far more compelling with relegation at stake.
No argument about selection either: the squad was consistent with Gonzalo Quesada’s project. He expected Trulla and was surprised by the absence of Izekor, but his summary is that nobody left at home was a game changer. Capuozzo was injured. And by the end of the season the players were tired, mentally as much as physically.
Japan and the All Blacks, two very different defeats
The Japan loss is the only one that genuinely hurts him, and not because of the scoreline.
We decided not to go and fight the trench war, and if you decide that, you have lost before you start.
The technical detail is the defensive push of the forwards alongside the breakdown, the one that creates density and slows the ball down. Without it, against the best transmission side in the world, there is no way out. His symbolic image is even a player like Niccolo Cannone standing still on guard duty.
Against the All Blacks, a 47-17 defeat, the judgement flips: a serious first half against a serious team, and a visible willingness to fight. With one warning attached – do not turn that half into an alibi, because a match is one single thing and holding that level costs twice as much.
I get angry when I don’t see the attitude.
The point
Italy’s season only reads properly when you stop adding results up and start weighing them. The Six Nations said one thing, the summer said another: the test will be which of the two teams turns up in November.
Read also: The best Italy XV and the 2031 horizon · Quesada ban: the protocol and the laws · all news
The full podcast is on the DanPat Rugby YouTube channel.
DANPAT Rugby