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Zebre Parma ended their pre-season with a heavy defeat: at the Laya Arena in Dublin on Saturday 12 September, reigning URC champions Leinster won 56-12, eight tries to two, and were already 35-5 up at the interval. Simone Gesi was the only Zebre scorer, twice, once in each half.
In episode 40 of Divagazioni di Rugby, DanPat and Cristian Lovisetto used that match as the way into a broader question: what is it fair to expect from Zebre this season?
A result that needs the right proportions
Neither of them wanted to dramatise it. Leinster, even without most of their internationals, can draw on an incomparable pool, and the players selected had every reason to make a case for themselves ahead of the league. The match, moreover, was not available to watch in Italy beyond a text commentary: a limitation both flagged, because judging a performance on statistics alone is a partial exercise.
One detail worth noting concerns the Irish fly-half. Caspar Gabriel, who finished with a flawless eight from eight off the tee, was born in Vienna on 18 October 2005 and is the first Austrian to play for Leinster: he started out at Rugby Union Donau Wien before moving to Ireland as a teenager. Curiously, his URC debut came almost exactly a year ago, against Zebre.
There was also a less reassuring note from the pitch: Jacopo Trulla went off after only ten minutes, replaced by Leonardo Sodo Migliori. The podcast mentioned a possible ankle sprain; no official medical bulletin confirming a diagnosis has appeared so far, and the history does not help, given the full-back already underwent surgery on his left ankle in December.
The departments that remain short
The sharpest point raised on the podcast concerns squad construction. “At this level — URC and Challenge Cup — you can’t seriously take on a season with only four centres,” Lovisetto said, “and that’s counting the South African who is supposed to arrive; otherwise it’s three.”
That South African has since arrived: Zane Bester, 23, a Griquas centre, joins Parma on loan. At 176 centimetres and 80 kilos he is not the classic crash-ball centre, with the profile of a ball carrier and sound defensive application. The point raised on air still stands, though: even with him, the department is at the bare minimum for a season on two fronts.
Both were careful to add a caveat: Zebre are Italian rugby’s development franchise and work on a budget unlike that of other URC clubs. The criticism, in other words, is about the balance between departments, not about ambition.
A squad that is no longer young
Perhaps the most interesting passage of the conversation is the one about age. Calling Zebre “a team of kids” is an entrenched cliché: scrolling through the squad list, the two realised it no longer holds. Many of the players who came up from Serie A Elite are not in their early twenties, and the bulk of the group sits in that twenty-three to thirty bracket which in rugby coincides with peak output.
Hence the central argument: this is Massimo Brunello’s third year as head coach, and for DanPat it is “the year of maturity, the one where you don’t have many excuses left”. The yardstick proposed is not a number of wins but something harder to measure: “I’d want to see growth in the understanding of the game,” Lovisetto said, citing players such as Stavile, Locatelli and Gesi himself, who after years spent chasing a Test place seems to have found his role within the side.
“Paradoxically it could even be a season where you don’t win a single game,” he added, “but I expect to see more in terms of the playing structure.”
Higher expectations than Treviso, different targets
The conclusion is almost a paradox, and DanPat spelled it out: while he believes Benetton will finish higher in the table, his expectations are higher for Zebre. The reason lies in the stage each project has reached: Treviso are rebuilding under a new coach, Parma are not.
The test begins on Saturday 26 September, with their URC opener against the Bulls.