Pieter De Villiers welcomes new trophy for Scotland Italy fixture
Scotland assistant coach Pieter De Villiers has welcomed the introduction of a new trophy commemorating Massimo Cuttitta.
Scotland and Italy will play for the newly-unveiled Cuttitta Cup for the first time in Saturday’s Guinness Six Nations match in Rome.
The trophy celebrates the life of Cuttitta, the former Italy captain and Scotland scrum coach who died of coronavirus 11 months ago at the age of 54.
“I met Massimo on the circuit,” said De Villiers. “What a man. He did a lot of brilliant work in Scotland and this will be a good tribute to him. Both teams will want to honour his legacy.”
Saturday’s match at Stadio Olimpico represents a chance for Scotland to make amends after suffering back-to-back defeats away to Wales and at home to France.
“We’d like to do better than in the past two games,” said De Villiers. “There was some disappointment there but there were also some good lessons and some good growth opportunities.
“As much as France were very good in terms of putting pressure on, we probably weren’t as good in terms of our territorial game and putting pressure on. That’s something the boys have discussed.
“We would like to be more balanced in terms of applying pressure and maintaining pressure and also finishing off our opportunities. There are good opportunities for growth for us.”
Scotland have added four players to their squad for the trip to Rome, with Jonny Gray returning from injury after missing the France game and Glen Young, Adam Hastings and Ross Thompson all included for the first time in the tournament.
De Villiers is encouraged by the talent pool currently at the disposal of head coach Gregor Townsend and his staff.
“It’s been fantastic to see how our depth has grown over the past two seasons,” he said. “Players are in form with their clubs and they’re getting rewarded for that.
“We’re looking forward to seeing them taking their opportunities and showing us what they’ve been doing with their clubs.”
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Hey Ben, Thanks for your opinion article. As a die hard rugby tragic and loyal supporter of the game can I say your article seems a touch negative so I would like to offer a slightly different spin on it. I am assuming that the sole purpose of the Super Rugby competition is not just to be a training camp for the International teams but an independent event and competition in its own right with sponsors, media companies and teams that need a financial return. Now, from this rugby fans perspective, I am enjoying the last few weeks of the competition and enjoying the fact that most teams can still make the play offs and nobody wants the wooden spoon. Most rugby followers would agree to it being a travesty if the Crusaders or the Waratahs now made it to the final but history tells us it is very unlikely with the importance of home ground advantage. Playing each team once and a four team final would give the competition integrity and a level playing field for all teams but I would be surprised if it could satisfy the financial demands of the TV rights. Maybe a six team finals series might be a possible compromise.
Go to commentsAll good choices John, even the Tah players ha ha. Others that might be worth a look would be ; Cale, Tom Lynagh, Uru, Keunzle, Anstee and maybe Rory Scott because we need a backup to McReight and he has improved a lot from last year and Tim Ryan.
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