Northern Edition
Select Edition
Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

Italy will hurt 'more than ever' after France defeat - O'Shea

Italian coach Conor O'Shea has told RugbyPass he believes his job is safe

Conor O’Shea says Italy will be hurting “more than ever” after passing up several chances in their Six Nations defeat to France.

ADVERTISEMENT

The Azzurri ended the campaign with five losses from five matches but should have capitalised on numerous opportunities in the 25-14 reverse at the hands of Les Bleus on Saturday.

Debutant Marco Zanon was particularly guilty of passing up chances and Italy were made to pay.

Coach O’Shea praised his side’s mentality yet acknowledged that this latest Rome defeat was particularly painful for his side.

“It’s really difficult, really difficult for the guys,” he told ITV Sport. “We’ll dust ourselves down and say that, a lot of the time in this Six Nations, we’ve given a huge amount.

“The competitiveness of this squad is going forward through all the things, but we should have won today. We had opportunity after opportunity after opportunity. We showed fight.

“We didn’t execute – that’s the bottom line. But if we continue to play with that level of intensity, it’ll come. At the moment, wow, it’s hard.”

ADVERTISEMENT

With captain Sergio Parisse perhaps playing his last Six Nations match, O’Shea praised of the impact of the result on his senior men: “These guys have an unbelievable mentality to keep coming back.

“They’ll hurt more than ever tonight, but they’ll come back.”

Even with Camille Chat in the sin bin for the last 10 minutes, Italy could not close the gap to France and instead saw the brilliant Damian Penaud seal an away victory.

Parisse added: “Honestly, I’m not thinking about myself and whether this is my last game or not, it’s just really disappointing.

“We’re frustrated because we managed the game, we had massive opportunities and we were a little bit unlucky as well sometimes.”

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Play Video

South Africa vs Black Ferns XV | Women's International | Full Match Replay

Play Video

Namibia vs United Arab Emirates | Asia/Africa Rugby World Cup Play-off | Full Match Replay

Play Video

Lions Share | Episode 5

Play Video

Classic Wallabies vs British & Irish Legends | First Match | Full Match Replay

Play Video

Did the Lions loosies get away with murder? And revisiting the Springboks lift | Whistle Watch

Play Video

The First Test, Visiting The Great Barrier Reef & Poetry with Pierre | Ep 6: The Ultimate Test

Play Video

KOKO Show | July 22nd | Full Throttle with Brisbane Test Review and Melbourne Preview

Play Video

New Zealand v South Africa | World Rugby U20 Championship | Extended Highlights

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

0 Comments
Be the first to comment...

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Long Reads

Comments on RugbyPass

TRENDING
TRENDING Three decisions that went badly wrong for the Wallabies Three decisions that went badly wrong for the Wallabies