Women's

Franco calls for more clinical Italy against Scotland

Franco split edit
Flanker Giada Franco believes Italy can be happy with the start they made to the 2021 Women’s Six Nations, but that they must improve in Round 3.

Flanker Giada Franco believes Italy can be happy with the start they made to the 2021 Women’s Six Nations, but that they must improve in Round 3.

The Azzurre fell to a 67-3 defeat to England in Round 2 as the Red Roses booked their place in the Championship final on Super Saturday by running in nine tries in Parma.

But, the one-sided scoreline fails to tell the whole story of a contest in which the hosts frustrated the defending champions for large periods and dominated possession in the first half.

Nevertheless, Franco was disappointed with Italy’s inability to turn ball into points as England stretched their advantage over the tiring home side in the final 20 minutes with four tries.

“Obviously, you can’t really be happy, a defeat is always a defeat,” Franco said on The Nick and Mo Show on Instagram.

“But, you can take the positives from it I think. We managed to have a good first half and, I should say, a good hour of the game.

“But then in the last 20 minutes we just gave away a little bit too much. I think we should be proud of what we’ve done.

“We have to do a little more. It’s normal, it’s been a long time since we played our last game together, but I think it can be a good start from us from that point of view.

“I think we could have been more clinical. We had the opportunity to score more points, especially when England were down to 14.

“Even straight after the second half started, we had some good momentum so we could have scored and then our last 20 minutes when we were a bit tired our discipline started to let us down. We have to work on those two main points.”

The hosts’ gameplan to wear down their opponents had been working but England broke the deadlock in the 22nd minute through Emily Scarratt before Vicky Fleetwood added a second score before half time.

But, as Italy tired England seized the initiative and they scored four tries in seven minutes with Abby Dow bagging a double, and Harriet Millar-Mills, Helena Rowland, Bryony Cleall, Claudia MacDonald and Lark Davies also crossing the whitewash.

And Franco admits she struggled to last the full 80 minutes on her return to international rugby.

“We have more camps than we usually have,” she added. “We needed them in order to be ready for these games, but it does affect you.

“Not on the mental side but the physical side. I was literally dying after 60 minutes and there was still 20 minutes to go.

“But I think we came out firing because we badly wanted to play, we’d been waiting for so long. We really want to play again now.”

Next up, Italy travel to Scotstoun to take on Scotland in a pivotal encounter which will decide who heads to the third/fourth-place play-off.

Not that Franco is taking her upcoming opponents lightly, and she expects a tough challenge.

“We know that Scotland is not going to be anything less than England in terms of intensity and physicality of the game but it’s a real target of ours to go there, do a good performance and then see what the score will be,” she said.