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A disappointing weekend for Italian rugby, and Zebre closed it in the worst possible way. At the Lanfranchi, on their URC opener, last season’s runners-up the Bulls won 47-13 with a bonus point: 21-6 at half-time, and in the second half there was never a single second when the result looked in doubt.
After Benetton’s 19-19 draw with the Dragons, a game they could have won, and Italy Women’s defeat to South Africa, this was the third result below expectations. I don’t know what the expectations were in the Zebre dressing room, but this opener cannot be given a pass mark.
Where did Zebre fall apart?
Against a South African side, some things you factor in: they come straight at you, they hurt you, you suffer. You can even accept being on the back foot at the scrum. What cannot have been in the game plan was getting walked all over at the lineout.
Three or four balls lost out of touch, and not because the Bulls were reading them: they were simply picking them off. When the lineout doesn’t give you clean ball, everything else gets harder.
Then there were the two first-half moments that weighed so heavily: the yellow card for Canali, which came with a penalty try, and Fusco’s pass intercepted by scrum-half De Wet, who ran in to score. That’s where Zebre lost what little punch they had.
Missing Gonzalo Garcia
At one point I had a flash: “Is Gonzalo Garcia still at Zebre?” No, he isn’t. And it shows. Alessandro Fusco has been given the captain’s armband and played an average game: he scored Zebre’s try in the second half, but he will certainly want to do better. Garcia could be a bit chaotic at times, but he was a player of real talent: something is missing there.
Injuries are a factor too, with a long list of players watching from the stands, Bautista Stavile among them. And yet this has to be a big season: the squad is full of players in their prime, between 24 and 28. This one game won’t define the championship, but we didn’t see the Zebre of Brunello’s best days, with their sparkling play, their offloads and their ability to hurt teams in transition.
We saw a Zebre side charged at with bayonets fixed, and they could put up barely the slightest resistance.
Tommaso Allan’s return
It was also the game that marked Tommaso Allan‘s return to Italian rugby. Two penalties and a conversion, a small error under a high ball and a performance with room for improvement: better once he moved to fly-half, but without really taking centre stage.
Who comes out of it well
Individually, nobody really caught the eye. The ones who emerge with credit are Locatelli, Filippo Alongi and Bertaccini at the breakdown. Gesi still has to grow, Belloni was perhaps not bad.
Alongi deserves a few more words. A big prospect in his Benetton days, in 2022 he was part of the Italy squad for the famous win in Cardiff; then a step back to Serie A Elite with Petrarca Padova, and now a return to the top level with a game in which he earned respect. Brunello chose to start Pisani and Castellano and then replace them after half an hour to get more solidity with him.
On the other side, the Lanfranchi crowd ended up watching the Bulls more than Zebre: Willie le Roux, Curwin Bosch and a Jacobs who kept running straight through.
The scrum’s crash test
The only good news is that the scrum somehow passed the Bulls crash test. Despite losing Matteo Nocera and Neculai’s departure, and after scrambling to recall players from Serie A Elite, Zebre showed they can get organised there too. The Bulls had an edge, but not a huge one.
And that may be the biggest regret: Zebre seemed to take the field already beaten mentally, convinced that being second best at the scrum would make everything else harder. Instead the scrum held, and everything else failed. There is a long road ahead, and it starts again straight away: on Friday 2 October they travel to Cardiff.
Read also
- Zebre v Bulls: the URC opener and the front-row crisis
- Italy 29-41 South Africa: the comeback that fell short
- Benetton v Dragons: Pivac’s URC opener
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Danilo — DanPat Rugby