Smith moved upstairs as All Blacks World Cup winner Crowley take charge of Italy
New Zealander Kieran Crowley will succeed Franco Smith as Italy head coach this summer. The 59-year-old has been appointed on a three-year contract from July 1 that will incorporate the 2023 World Cup in France.
The Italian Rugby Federation also announced that Smith will move into a new role as head of high performance. Crowley, who was a member of New Zealand’s 1987 World Cup-winning squad, coached Canada for eight years before taking charge at Guinness PRO14 club Benetton.
He will be assisted in his coaching team by Andrea Moretti, Marius Goosen, Corrado Pilat and Giovanni Sanguin. Crowley said: “I am honoured that the FIR (Italian federation) has given me the opportunity to lead Italy to the next World Cup.
“In the five years with Benetton Rugby, I have been able to get to know and understand the country and its rugby culture, a knowledge that I can’t wait to deepen in this role.”
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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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