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Ex-All Black named as new Italy coach to replace South African Franco Smith
By AAP
Italy have named former New Zealand international Kieran Crowley as their national team rugby coach, replacing South African Franco Smith.
Crowley has been coach at Italian club Benetton since 2016. He coached at international level with Canada from 2008-16.
Smith, who took charge after the 2019 Rugby World Cup, will move into a new role as the head of high performance in Italian rugby.
"In the five years with Benetton Rugby, I've been able to learn and understand the country and its rugby culture, an understanding which I cannot wait to develop as head coach of the national team," Crowley said.
Crowley won the World Cup as a player with the All Blacks in 1987.
Italy are coming off a sixth straight last-place finish in the Six Nations, igniting the debate over whether the Azzurri deserve their guaranteed place in the competition.
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Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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