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Italy off the mark with Women's Six Nations win over Ireland
By Kim Ekin
Italy secured their first win in the 2023 TikTok Women’s Six Nations with a 24-7 victory over Ireland, in a match held at Stadio Sergio Lanfranchi, Parma. Alyssa D’Inca was the hero of the match as she scored two tries, including the match-winning try in the closing stages, to help Italy secure a memorable victory.
Italy failed to capitalise on their early opportunities, with Neve Jones making a crucial turnover penalty under her own posts with Italy threatening their line. Despite the missed opportunities, Italy continued to look the more threatening side, with Michela Sillari and Beatrice Rigoni both causing problems for Ireland.
Italy’s breakthrough came in the 28th minute, when Rigoni shifted the ball to the left to D’Inca, who then fed Beatrice Capomaggi and finally Aura Muzzo on the wing. She raced clear before feeding Rigoni inside and while the centre was tackled just short of the line, she offloaded to new skipper Sofia Stefan for the try. Sillari converted from out wide to make it 7-0.
Ireland finished the half strongly, setting up camp in the Italy 22 and getting the nudge in the scrum. However, their efforts came to nothing, as a penalty in front of the posts was not converted into points.
Italy came out of the blocks quickly in the second half, with D’Inca doubling their advantage in the 41st minute. This time, the second rows Sara Tounesi and Giordana Duca played the overlap perfectly to put the winger away. She stepped inside the final covering tackle and Sillari’s conversion made it 14-0.
Ireland continued to fight back and their pack earned them a penalty try in the 67th minute, reducing the deficit to 10 points. However, Italy’s defence held strong, and Sara Barattin’s fine work at the breakdown disrupted the visitors in their final meaningful attack.
In the closing stages, Italy added gloss to the scoreline, with D’Inca scoring her second try of the match. She latched on to Rigoni’s delicate chip and crossed the whitewash to secure a memorable win for the hosts in Parma. The match ended 24-7 in favour of Italy.
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Stephen Larkham, Mick Byrne, Scott Wisental, Ben Mowen, Les Kiss, Jim McKay, Rod Kafer.
There are plenty of great Australian coaches who could do a better job than Schmidt.
Go to commentsThis piece is nothing more than the result of revisionist fancy of Northern Hemisphere rugby fans. Seeing what they want to see, helped but some surprisingly good results and a desire to get excited about doing something well.
I went back through the 6N highlights and sure enough in every English win I remembered seeing these exact holes on the inside, that are supposedly the fallout out of a Felix Jones system breaking down in the hands of some replacement. Every time the commentators mentioned England being targeted up the seam/around the ruck or whatever. Each game had a try scored on the inside of the blitz, no doubt it was a theme throughout all of their games. Will Jordan specifically says that Holland had design that move to target space he saw during their home series win.
Well I'm here to tell you they were the same holes in a Felix Jones system being built as well. This woe is now sentiment has got to stop. The game is on a high, these games have been fantastic! It is Englands attack that has seen their stocks increase this year, and no doubt that is what SB told him was the teams priority. Or it's simply science, with Englands elite players having worked towards a new player welfare and management system, as part of new partnership with the ERU, that's dictating what the players can and can't put their bodies through.
The only bit of truth in this article is that Felix is not there to work on fixing his defence. England threw away another good chance of winning in the weekend when they froze all enterprise under pressure when no longer playing attacking footy for the second half. That mindset helped (or not helped if you like) of course by all this knee jerk, red brained criticism.
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