Italy resort to bizarre ceremony to help move on from All Blacks defeat

Italy head coach Kieran Crowley had a tough job on his hands this week trying to help his side move on from shipping 14 tries against the All Blacks in a 96-17 loss. To make matters infinitely harder, he had to do this whilst simultaneously preparing to face a France team seven days later that have already beaten the All Blacks this World Cup.

It seems like a devilish task, and in such extreme circumstances an extreme method might well be the only way to help Italy change their mindset. Well Crowley has not been afraid to resort to peculiar practices this week as they prepare to face the tournament hosts in Lyon on Friday.

Italy scrum-half Stephen Varney admitted this week that the Azzurri were "devastated" after the All Blacks match, and in order to regain their confidence, Crowley organised a fire ceremony for the entire squad and staff. Before notions of The Wicker Man spring to mind, this was an effective way to draw a line in the sand and focus on a match where they could qualify for the quarter-finals with an unlikely win.

"We were quite devastated by our performance," the Gloucester No9 said. "Going into the week, Kieran brought us in and we needed to get our confidence back so we did this thing where we chucked our thoughts into the fire, sort of thing, and tried to forget about it and take our learnings into this week.

"I think we have done that well and we've prepared well for the last few days in training and we're confident going into Friday.

"Basically, we just wrote our thoughts on a piece of paper and just chucked it into the fire. I think it was a good way of forgetting about it and moving on. Because I don't think that performance defined us as a team.

"We got our confidence back from training now and hopefully we can put a good performance in on Friday."

Lock Federico Ruzza, who starts alongside Varney against Les Bleus, also explained how this ceremony helped the team move on.

"It is important as a team to move on," the Benetton lock said. "Yes, we had to look back and review the match and some points where we can obviously be better. It's also important to move on for the next match and to show how good we can be. It's important to prepare for this match in a proper way and we are."