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After Round Three, it was former Italy prop Martin Castrogiovanni who looked back at a thrilling weekend where Scotland ended their Calcutta Cup struggles, Ireland took a step closer to the overall win and France won the all-Latin affair in Marseille. ITALIAN RESPONSIBILITY Italy were very much in contention for an hour at the Stade Vélodrome but in the end France were able to pull away and ran out 34-17 winners. But while Italy have yet to register a win this year, Castrogiovanni believes the Irishman, Conor O’Shea, has the right long-term vision with strong form at club level among the positives for them.
He explained: “Watching the game, you saw a lot of the problems that we have seen for the last ten years with Italy, and I’m not sure if it’s mental or physical.
“We’re Latin and we often look for other people to blame when we lose but I spent seven years in England, and there it was really interesting to see that people looked you in the face and took responsibility when things went wrong.
“We have a change in generation in Italy at the moment, only Sergio Parisse, Leonardo Ghiraldini and Alessandro Zanni are still there from my generation, so it’s not fair to blame the players.
“It’s a long-term project, but I think (O’Shea) is the right person in charge. He has experience in England with Harlequins and he took over there when they had been struggling.
“It will take time but things will get better for Italy, they have to wait for the young players to get more experience.
“It’s the best possible coaching team that is in place at the moment and most teams would be happy to have them.” ATTENTION TO DETAIL In contrast, Ireland are very much out in front, with 14 points from three games so far and are the only team capable of winning a Grand Slam.
Their win over Wales puts them a strong position ahead of a clash with Scotland.
Ireland have been hugely impressive over the last four years under Joe Schmidt, and Castrogiovanni was not surprised at how they have performed in 2018.
He said: “They have been very good for a while but in the last few years they have improved even more. They are a bit like England in some ways, and that should be a great final game. They are maybe not quite as physical, but they are so good at the little details.
“Getting those details is so important in rugby, it’s changed even from when I was playing, and Ireland are very good at that, including this weekend just gone.
“Coaches and managers are so important now in preparing a team, and you can see that Ireland do that really well with Joe Schmidt.” SCOTTISH RENAISSANCE The Scots have enjoyed an incredible resurgence. First under Vern Cotter, and now with Gregor Townsend at the helm, the Scots have moved up to fifth in the world, and on Saturday reclaimed the Calcutta Cup for the first time in a decade.
In many ways, they represent a model to follow for Italy, although Castrogiovanni admits it will be difficult to emulate such a rapid transformation.
“No team has evolved as much as Scotland in the last three years, they were in a massive crisis a few years back and now look at them,” he said.
“They have been able to turn the corner and from an Italian perspective, you would like to try to follow their example.
“But it’s not easy to do, it’s a lot to do with the leadership at the top, and they have done really well over the last few seasons.
“They are playing very well, they go to Rome in the final round and that will be difficult, they will be favourites, but we have experience of winning games like that so you never know. Scotland have been very impressive though, and beating England was a big step for them.” #TopMoments France v Italy: From the game in Marseille I’m going to go with Italy’s try right at the end by Matteo Minozzi, it was important for them to finish with a score, and I thought it was deserved because they played some good rugby in the game. There’s obviously a mix of emotions but it was good to see them score a great try like that, and Minozzi has had a good Championship so far. Ireland v Wales: In Dublin I will go for Johnny Sexton’s pass for Jacob Stockdale to score the first try of the game. We didn’t quite cross over at Racing, he left the year before I arrived, but we played against each other a few times. That pass from Sexton was excellent and made the try for Stockdale. Scotland v England: Finally for the Calcutta Cup game, I will go for Sean Maitland’s try, and the Finn Russell pass that set it up. So much of rugby is about getting the little details right, but it was great to see someone try something like that and throw such a daring pass in his own 22 to Huw Jones and they were rewarded with a try at the end of it.
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