Focusing on young people, CT Crowley is building something important.
26 September 2015, Rugby World Cup. Italrugby is facing Canada, it is being played at Elland Road. In the 15th minute Italy kicks a restart drop, the ball reaches winger van der Merwe who evades Giamba Venditti’s intervention with a visor and flies away in total serenity or almost up to the goal area. The Italian defensive performance is embarrassing: they look like more actors than one slapstick than a rugby team. The game, which was supposed to be a walk in theory, turns into a psychodrama: the blues in the end win it 23-18 but the performance is perhaps the worst of recent Italian rugby.
At the end of the game the comments are ferocious, the then blue coach Brunel ends up on the grill. Rumors of a war between him and the group’s senators are making a comeback, a constant in the relationship between the Azzurri and the head coach. Coste, Berbizier and Mallett also passed through the same gauntlet. Nobody cared about that Canada: it had some solid players, like Jamie Cudmore, but it remained a modest team. Yet that performance was not accidental and today we understand why: the coach of that Canada was called Kieran Crowley and today he sits on the blue bench. Talking about the hopes and prospects of today’s Italrugby means starting from his work, which he began a few years ago.
A laboratory called Benetton Treviso
The New Zealand coach arrives in Italy in the summer of 2016, hired by Benetton Treviso. The green-and-whites are at the worst moment in their Pro14 history, the year before they had also been overtaken in the standings by Zebre, who have always worn the black jersey of the tournament. The climate at Ghirada is so gloomy that there is even talk in the city of a possible disengagement of the Benetton family. Within three years Crowley brings Treviso one step away from the semi-final for the title, almost making Munster tremble at Thomond Park with a performance of the highest level.
Crowley’s management, in addition to showing an airy game, is based on an assumption that up to that moment hadn’t given the desired results. For some years the FIR had set up a system of federal academies, in which to train the talents who would then have had to establish themselves in senior rugby. Until then, very few had managed to make the leap in quality. Crowley looks at the youth teams, immediately realizes the potential and builds an important collaboration with the Under 20 technical staff, then made up of Fabio Roselli (current Zebre coach), Andrea Moretti and Massimo Lombardo. The latter, forward coach and match analyst, now work side by side with Crowley.
The first players that Crowley welcomes from the academies are, among others, Riccioni, Lamaro and Niccolò Cannone. On them he builds the backbone of the team, integrating it with veterans such as Sgarbi and Zanni and the strikers from the foreign market Ioane and Halafihi. These are the years 1997-1998: it is a talented group, grown up with new principles of play and the desire to combine athletic freshness with a dynamic and modern game. The results are immediately visible, the turning point is clear and only the pandemic slows down the growth path until the anomalous 2021 in which Treviso misses everything in the championship but wins the Rainbow Cupthe first international trophy in its history.
A new Italy
The results obtained with Treviso convince the Federation in that same year a move Crowley towards the national team, also to be rebuilt. The imprint is immediately clear: to integrate what has been done in the Brand with the latest academy talents, those with 2 as the first digit of the year of birth. We are talking about a golden generation of Italian rugby which is already at the center of the technical project today. The list is long: the starting median Varney–Garbisi; rotation players like Favretto, Menoncello e Zuliani; Lorenzo Cannone who is inheriting the number 8 shirt that belonged to Parisse. Others are absent due to injury, such as Lucca e Marin. Still others will arrive between now and the next two-three years, such as the current Under 20 players who are doing well despite narrow defeats.
The cover name is that of Ange Capuozzo, an Italian-French player discovered by Roselli and Moretti during a friendly match between the Under 20 team at the time and the espoirs of Grenoble, where Capuozzo played without too much conviction. His impact with the blue shirt is explosive: two tries on his debut, his incredible ride that gave Italy its first victory in the Six Nations after seven years, his tries that allowed beat Australia for the first time in history. He has a quickness of legs and brain that recall those of a legend of blue rugby, the late Ivan Francescato, but alone they are not enough.
This is where the work of the coach comes in: Crowley’s Italy is a team unpredictable ball in hand, always able to create dangers for the opponents. It has been seen last Saturdayagainst an Ireland that has been dominating the tournament so far but suffered against the Azzurri, took a big risk at a certain point and only found the decisive twist in the final.
Now Wales, then the World Cup
This afternoon the Olimpico arrives Wales who is experiencing the worst moment in his oval history: the economic crisis of the movement is such that only an intervention by Gatland, recalled to his bedside by a federation in disarray, has stopped the players from their intention not to take the field against England. The Dragons lost 10-20, after 80 minutes played on the level of pride, but remain the weakest team. Skeletal in offensive organization and without the defensive ferocity that allowed Wales to dominate the 2008-2019 period, achieving results not seen since the glorious 70s. He will close the difficult trip to Murrayfield against Scotlandalways dragged by Finn Russell.
So far Italy, for the first time since its entry into the Six Nations, is proving that it is no longer the Cinderella of the tournament, capable only of random exploits, but a competitive team capable of competing on equal terms with all others, as well as being ready for the World Cup which starts on September 8th. The chances of going through are objectively few, due to the presence in the group of France, the hosts, and the All Blacks. What remains is the path taken for a year now: with Crowley’s game and the youngest squad in the Six Nations the potential to build a cycle is all there.
