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Nine seasons coaching the Benetton scrum, then a step back. These days Fabio Ongaro watches Italy from this side of the fence, and everybody asks him the same thing: what does it feel like to see those players go toe to toe with the best packs in the world?
His answer is the least heroic one available. That is exactly why it lands.
I coached them for most of the time, but I hope they learned something.
Built at a club, seen with the national team
Ongaro finished his playing career with 81 Italy caps as a hooker, across twelve years in the squad. Then he took up the other trade: nine seasons as scrum coach at Benetton, the club where a large share of Italy’s current forwards grew up. He left the Treviso staff in 2025.
He was never on the national team bus, and yet part of what you see on the international stage passed through his hands. His own version is simpler: he worked with those lads, and he hopes something stuck.
What actually happened in the scrum against Ireland and South Africa?
In the 2026 Six Nations Italy lost 20-13 in Dublin, but pushed Ireland into trouble at scrum time for long stretches. Three months earlier, in Turin, the Azzurri had absorbed the world champion Springboks before losing 32-14. Two defeats, and one department that won its own contest.
That is Ongaro’s point. The scoreboard tells one story, the scrum tells another, and the second one is built over years in gyms and clubs long before Saturday afternoon.
“The credit is theirs”
On his own share of that growth, though, Ongaro gives nothing away. No claim staked, no regret about not being in there anymore.
I’m happy they achieved these results, I’m not envious, I always wish them the best. So the credit is very much theirs.
When he does try to describe what he actually did, he reaches for self-mockery: he says he mostly kept the group together after talking, in his words, a fair amount of nonsense. And they believed it.
Why it matters
Italian rugby has learned to trust its forwards, and that did not happen by accident. Behind a scrum that holds up against Ireland and South Africa there is a chain that runs from the club to the national side, made of people who step back when it is time to take the credit. Ongaro is one of them.
Read also: Ongaro and his last Italy jersey, fourteen years on · all DanPat Rugby news · the video archive · Checchinato on Italy: academies, Quesada and the tour lesson
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