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The first trophy of the 2026-2027 season is already in the Reggio Emilia cabinet. At the Tommaso Fattori stadium in L’Aquila, on Saturday 12 September, Valorugby Emilia beat Petrarca Rugby 40-21 and lined up their third title in seven months: Coppa Italia, Serie A Elite and now the Italian Super Cup, each time in a final against the side from Padua.
In episode 40 of Divagazioni di Rugby, DanPat and Cristian Lovisetto used that match as the starting point for a look at the championship about to begin.
A final settled inside half an hour
The scoresheet describes a game that was never really in the balance. The Diavoli opened the scoring after six minutes through Colombo, doubled up on 14 minutes with Nicolò Casilio and went in at half-time 19-7 up after the scrum-half’s second try of the afternoon; he was later named man of the match in front of his home crowd. Hugo, Brisighella and Bianco added tries after the break, while Petrarca replied through Casolari, Messori and Destro, with Braga accurate off the tee but never dragging his side back into the contest. There were 2,324 spectators in a setting Lovisetto called one of the treasures of Italian rugby.
“Everyone expected Valorugby to win,” Lovisetto recalled on the podcast, “and this time the prediction came good.”
Why Petrarca are starting from so far back
According to the reading offered on the podcast, the gap on the pitch has roots that go back a long way. Valorugby were already Italian champions and have strengthened again; Petrarca, by contrast, are going through a change of ownership which, again in Lovisetto’s view, comes with a scaling back of financial commitment, with Alessandro Banzato — now president of Padova’s football club — no longer serving as president of the rugby club, though he remains on the board.
The result is a very young squad with few senior figures to build around: captain Andrea Trotta and Galetto above all. In the final, Petrarca’s back three axis was made up of Jimenez, Braga and Fasti, largely the generation seen at the Under 20 World Championship. “There are two or three lads who I think are genuinely strong and could reach the franchises before long,” Lovisetto said, singling out prop Giacomo Messori, also fresh from the U20 World Championship, who came off the bench and scored with a pick and go on 56 minutes. The overall verdict, though, is blunt: against a Valorugby side like this one, an average age that low can only do so much.
The thread linking Padua and Parma
The podcast touched on Petrarca opening up to the permit player formula. It is worth spelling out how it actually works, because the flow runs in the opposite direction to what you might assume: in mid-July Zebre Parma and Petrarca signed an agreement taking three young players from Padua — Octavio Barbatti, Federico Pisani and Dewi Passarella — into the ducal franchise’s technical project while they remain registered with the Veneto club.
This is not a piece of paperwork. Federico Pisani, born in 2004, started the Zebre friendly in Dublin against Leinster barely a week ago. It is the kind of shop window a player from the Italian league did not have until recently.
Who can push Reggio Emilia
On the starting grid for the season the two voices on the podcast agreed: Valorugby are the favourites, by a wider margin than last year. “I don’t see a side capable of putting a spanner in the works consistently across the season,” Lovisetto summed up.
Behind them, these are their calls, and they remain opinions: Rovigo as closest challengers, because they have not dismantled their squad the way Petrarca did and have added some weight — most notably Franco Smith Jr, a centre born in 2000, formerly of Zebre and the Cheetahs and son of the former Italy head coach, confirmed by the rossoblù over the summer. Then Viadana. For the last play-off places, they expect one of Fiamme Oro, Mogliano and Vicenza.
A wish for the future
Lovisetto closed with a thought worth more than a prediction: “You know what I’d love to see one day? A proper Valorugby-Zebre match. I think it would be a good game.” It is not on the calendar, but it says a great deal about how the perception of the Italian champions has grown.