Buried beneath basketball and bocce, Italy’s brave performance against Ireland in Rome merited a complimentary write-up in the country’s famed pink sports newspaper La Gazetta dello Sport. “Italia sconfitta dall’Irlanda 34-20, ma la strada è quella giusta”, “Italy defeated by Ireland 34-20, but the road is the right one” its headline read.
The current road the Italian rugby team is on is certainly well paved, largely thanks to the foundations put in place by Dubliner Stephen Aboud who created the Azzurri’s famed underage structures that are now bearing serious fruit.
Aboud left his role with Italian rugby in 2021, but played a significant role in the development of young stars that have shone in this year’s Six Nations such as number eight Lorenzo Cannone, outhalf Paolo Garbisi and the outstanding fullback Ange Capuozzo. Eight of the Italian starting line-up against Ireland on Saturday came through Aboud’s underage structures.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither was the latest bumper crop of prime Italian rugby talent. Aboud succeeded in persuading young talent such as Gloucester scrumhalf Stephen Varney to buy into Italy’s under-20s rather than playing for his native Wales, thus ensuring that there would be a cohesive Italian team forged together from their teens.
A young playing group is a rare luxury for a country that has often had to bolster its playing stocks with veteran campaigners from all corners of the rugby world seeking a final pay-day and an international cap for the mantlepiece.
Italian rugby has rarely looked so confident on the field, and this fearless cohort has many years to continue developing together into a seriously strong outfit. Italy’s performance against Ireland was a delight to watch. All rugby fans just have to hope that the blazers in Italian rugby do not continue to dismantle the very underage foundations on which Saturday’s performance in Rome was built.
Tom Tierney’s death a shock to Irish rugby community
The Irish rugby community was shocked and saddened to hear of the passing of former international scrumhalf Tom Tierney at the age of 46. Tierney was capped eight times for his country and represented Munster, Connacht and Leicester Tigers at club level with distinction. Tierney made four appearances in the 1999 Rugby World Cup, scoring a try against Romania. His legacy as a coach is significant, particularly within the women’s game in Ireland.
Employed by the IRFU since 2014, Tierney held coaching roles with Ireland U19 and U20 men’s teams, Ireland Women’s Sevens and Ireland Women’s 15s for three years where his honours included a 2015 Women’s Six Nations Championship. He also led the Ireland Women’s team during the 2017 Women’s Rugby World Cup which was held in Ireland.
His most recent role was as IRFU National Talent Coach where he had been working with Munster Academy players.
John Ryan hits the ground running as Chiefs stun Crusaders
Rugby like life can work in mysterious ways. In October last year, John Ryan left Wasps and life in Coventry after the club entered administration. At 33, with a wife and two young children, not unreasonably the prop might have thought that it was time to update his CV for life after rugby.
The Cork native returned to Munster for a successful three-month contract back home that earned him a move to Waikato Chiefs in New Zealand for the Super Rugby Pacific season.
Ryan came off the bench in Christchurch to help the Chiefs earn a shock defeat against the star-studded Crusaders 31-10 on Friday in the first game of the season. After the completion of the Super Rugby season, the in-form Ryan will return for one more year with Munster. What a difference a few months can make.
Record £250k for jersey shows buoyant market for memorabilia
While it is not in the league of Michael Jordan’s 1998 NBA Finals Chicago Bulls jersey that went for $10 million last year, former Wales scrumhalf Gareth Edwards has broken the record for the most expensive rugby jersey ever, with his Barbarians shirt from the iconic 1973 game against the All Blacks going for £250,000 in Cardiff last week.
Edwards’s try in that game is still argued by many fans to be the game’s greatest ever. Edwards was auctioning off a selection of his prized jerseys, including his British and Lions shirt from the victorious tour to South Africa under Willie John McBride’s captaincy in 1974. The final price for that heavy cotton number 9 jersey was a more easily digestible £10,000.
Edwards also sold a selection of opponents’ jerseys including former Ireland hooker, the late Dr Ken Kennedy, who passed away in 2022. The former orthopaedic surgeon’s Ireland jersey from the 1968/69 season went under the hammer for £2,000.
According to Marketing Decipher, the sports memorabilia market is expected to reach $227.2 billion globally in 2032. Some of Ireland rugby’s stars of yesteryear could do worse than climbing up into the attic, grabbing the bin liner of old muddy jerseys and giving their local auctioneer a call.
Word of Mouth
“The union is sitting on a pot of £4.8 million that they’re reluctant to put into the game that could save Welsh rugby. But players were told that £4.8 million is being used to improve things like corporate hospitality at the stadium. You can imagine the players’ frustration, there will be no need for corporate hospitality if things continue in the pro game the game needs proper investment not money taken out.” – Ospreys flanker Sam Cross posted his frustrations with the Welsh Rugby Union’s financial management on Twitter last Friday.
By the Numbers: 14
Belfast club Instonians defeated Sunday’s Well 66-0 to secure a remarkable 14th bonus-point victory in a row in their first season back in the AIL. The club had failed to secure promotion to the AIL in playoffs in 2015, 2018 and 2019, before defeating Bective Rangers last year to return to senior rugby.
