National Team
The Italian national rugby union side have been playing international rugby since the late 1920s, and are categorized, by the International Rugby Board, as a tier one nation. They have competed in the Six Nations Championship since 2000 and at all the Rugby World Cups. Italy's best result at a Rugby World Cup was at the 2007 tournament in France, where they won two of their four pool matches and lost by two points to Scotland, narrowly missing the quarter-finals.
On St. Valentine's Day 2010, Italy lost narrowly to England in Rome (12-17), further consolidating Italy's rise in international rugby, and this rise continued with a 22-21 victory over France on 12 March 2011.
Notable Italian players include:
- Ivan Francescato
- Paolo Vaccari
- Carlo Checchinato
- Massimo Giovanelli
- Mauro and Mirco Bergamasco
Italy also has a national rugby sevens team.
Read more about this topic: Rugby Union In Italy
Famous quotes containing the words national and/or team:
“The word which gives the key to the national vice is waste. And people who are wasteful are not wise, neither can they remain young and vigorous. In order to transmute energy to higher and more subtle levels one must first conserve it.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“I also heard the whooping of the ice in the pond, my great bed-fellow in that part of Concord, as if it were restless in its bed and would fain turn over, were troubled with flatulency and bad dreams; or I was waked by the cracking of the ground by the frost, as if some one had driven a team against my door, and in the morning would find a crack in the earth a quarter of a mile long and a third of an inch wide.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)