Mallett's blueprint for Bok Test
Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:42
Italy coach Nick Mallett feels that his inexperienced young team can compete with the Springboks, if they succeed in applying themselves for eighty minutes.
Mallett named his team on Wednesday to play the world champion Boks at Newlands Stadium this weekend, under the guidance of skipper and hooker Leonardo Ghiraldini.
With so many of Italy's regular stalwarts missing due to injury or club commitments, it was no surprise that four debutants were named in the Italian matchday 22.
Mallett expanded on the one position in which Italy produces quality in abundance - prop forward. He joked that Italy is blessed with a number of props that would "walk into the Australian side."
But the fact that Italy have been denied the services of players such as Leicester prop Martin Castrogiovanni means that Mallett's job has been made so much harder.
"Any county would battle if they had seven of their first-choice props unavailable," conceded Mallett.
Italy is very fortunate in that it's one country that really does produce very good front row forwards, and Carlos Nieto is technically a very good tighthead [prop].
"Michele Rizzo is a young club player, 24 years old. He's been capped before, and he comes into the front row for this match."
But Mallett remained realistic and upbeat about the match despite missing his key men.
He explained that his team's performance against the Bok forward pack would depend very much on how well the Italian line-out forwards got on against their illustrious opponents.
"A lot depends really on our line-outs. We've got Del Fava and Dellape who are two decent line-out jumpers, and at the back we've got Josh Sole and Alessandro Zanni.
"Our line-out went quite well at the Six Nations, but my view is that the Six Nations is not at the same level as southern hemisphere international rugby.
"There's no better lock pairing to disrupt opposition line-outs than Matfield and any lock he plays with - Matfield and Bekker, or Matfield and Bakkies Botha, or Matfield and Rossouw - whoever he plays with makes it very difficult.
"If sides like Australia and England struggle against Matfield, then we're going to have trouble ourselves," warned Mallett.
The former Boland, Stade Francais and Springbok coach obviously has great knowledge of Newlands, the venue for the Test, as well as the nature of the challenge that would come from the Springbok camp.
He felt that the real task ahead of the Italian team was to keep their focus during the Test, and to produce their best efforts throughout the match, regardless of the situation.
"I'm really hoping to see as many players playing for the full eighty minutes, and never letting their heads drop, no matter what the score is, because it's very tricky," said the coach.
"The Springboks have such quality players, that you can play well for five minutes and make just one mistake, and suddenly you're seven points down. Then you kick off, and suddenly the Springboks play well, and it's fourteen points after 10 minutes. Then before you know what's happened, it's 21 points. And then they start looking at each other and say, 'Ag, we're not gonna win this afternoon', and they don't play, and that's when you get a hundred points [against you].
"The challenge is really to make sure that, whatever happens, however many points get scored against them, that they put that behind them, and play as hard as they can for the next ten minutes.
"I think if we have enough players that do that, I'll be quite proud of that team."
The coach also wore his heart on his sleeve about the summer tour, and revealed his feelings about the objectives of the group in the long-term.
The outspoken Mallett said that in a perfect world, he would not have thrown such a young squad to the proverbial wolves by sending it on what is essentially a development assignment in the backyards of two of the three best teams from last years World Cup.
"To be absolutely honest, it's not an ideal tour for a young developing Italian side to come and play the world champions, and then play Argentina away.
"Playing our best team at our best level is quite competitive at the Six Nations, and we can hold our own there, although by no means are we going to go on and win that competition.
"So this weakened side, playing the world champions away, is a huge challenge. I said to the team that it doesn't help going out there and being nervous of reputations.
"What's important is that we must try and concentrate on holding onto the ball if we can, as much as possible, because the longer we have it, the less chance the Springboks have of using the ball to score tries.
Mallett said that Italy would try to be positive if it was at all possible.
"We'll be trying to play rugby, provided the weather conditions are favourable," the coach quipped.
By Phil Coetzer
