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Legendary Parisse bestows similar 'legend' status on the retiring Zanni
By Josh Raisey
Legend is often a description used for Sergio Parisse, but the former Italy captain has used it to describe Alessandro Zanni, the 36-year-old who has announced his retirement from playing.
The flanker/lock is set to take up a strength and conditioning role with Benetton Treviso, the Guinness PRO14 club he represented at a player the past eleven years after joining from Calvisano in 2009.
With 119 caps, he has retired as the joint-second most capped Italy player (tied with Martin Castrogiovani) behind Parisse. Both players are the same age and came through Italian age-grade rugby together, so it was fitting Parisse shared a message on Instagram after the flanker announced his retirement.
“From the freshman I met in the U19s to the thousand games together, training on the field, sitting in the gym trying to keep up with you, the tournaments, the Six Nations, the World Cup with the blue shirt and all the moments lived off the field: it was really a pleasure and an honour!”
Zanni was also the player that frequently deputised at No8 when Parisse was unavailable, notably during the 2010 Six Nations.
His last appearance in professional rugby was in the loss to Scotland at the Stadio Olimpico in the Six Nations this year, which was Italy’s last game before the suspension of the tournament as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Having made his debut in November 2005 against Tonga three years after Parisse, Zanni was not necessarily always in the limelight given the prominence of his back row partner.
Regardless, he was consistently a member of the Italian set-up after making his debut, competing in four World Cups and playing right through to this year’s Six Nations, even playing in the second row over the past two years of his career.
Zanni said: "When a career ends it is a very hard and difficult moment because you realise that the greatest passion you have, which is to play rugby, will be gone overnight. I started playing rugby in 1991 - quite a few years have passed."
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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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