Francesco Palma
November 9 – 9.38pm – MILANO
Downsize. In the best year of Italrugby's recent history, an unexpected blow arrives against an Argentina team that is still too superior for these Azzurri. Moreover, Sergio Parisse had said it the day before: “Beating this Argentina would be like beating the All Blacks and South Africa”, and in fact the Pumas won against the New Zealanders and Springboks only 2 months ago, while the Azzurri are still far from that level, as also said by coach Gonzalo Quesada. Now we will have to reset everything, because Georgia is next Sunday, and we know that the Lelos view the match with the Azzurri as a real play-off for the Six Nations. You can't go wrong anymore.
“THREE RIDICULOUS DESTINATIONS”
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Quesada explains that there is “great disappointment because in my opinion there aren't that many points of difference between Italy and Argentina, but we conceded at least 3 ridiculous tries. When you play against such strong teams and give gifts of this kind it's difficult to stay in the game Furthermore, in the first half we had a goal disallowed by Spagnolo which was legitimate.” Yet the Azzurri had shown that they were there in the first half, then the collapse: “We managed to come back well from the initial 17-0 after 2 tries. given by us, then in the second half we managed to put them under pressure and in our best moment we wasted some opportunities, and precisely in that moment we scored the goal that changed the match. This is the high level. Now we have to work to prepare the match with Georgia, which I have always said is the most important of this November. At the moment Argentina is superior to us, but it is a shame to do so with such a heavy result.”
lamaro's disappointment
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A lucid analysis also from captain Lamaro: “We had too many problems, especially in those '50 and 50' balls where the Argentines are always very good at arriving first. We have many faults, in the second half we were unable to remain orderly and compact.” As happened last year with the All Blacks and France, at a certain point the collapse seemed more mental than physical or technical, and Lamaro was very clear on this too: “There are no excuses: it's an international match where anything can happen, we have to be able to be fired up and focused for the whole 80 minutes, even when things go wrong. We knew we would face a great team that would leave us nothing. In some moments we managed to create opportunities, but they always put us in difficulty at the meeting point. Now head to Georgia.”
