Game theory

Sports

The abysmal Azzurri

Why Italy are so bad at rugby

Feb 13th 2016, 12:16 by T.A.W.

POOR Sergio Parisse. When the colossal Italian finally

retires, he will be an obvious candidate for the World
Rugby Hall of Fame: he is widely regarded as one of the
best number eights ever to play the game, having twice
been nominated for the World Rugby Player of the Year
award. But whilst Mr Parisse is a rare talent, combining the
power of a gigantic forward with the handling skills of a
centre and the majestic stride of a winger, he also has the
misfortune to play for Italy.

In the 16 years since they were given Tier 1 status and admitted to the Six Nations, the annual
round-robin competition for Europes best national sides, the Azzurri have had a dismal record. They
have won just 12 of their 81 matches, picking up the wooden spoon on ten occasions. They will probably
add to that unenviable collection in 2016: RugbyVision (http://www.rugbyvision.com/) , a predictive
model for fixtures and tournaments, gave Mr Parisses men an 84% chance of finishing last at the start of
this years edition (https://www.statslife.org.uk/sports/2668-will-the-english-rugby-team-redeem-itself-
at-the-six-nations-championships?platform=hootsuite) . Italy have fared no better on larger international
stages. They have never qualified from the pool stages at a World Cup, and languish in 12th place in
RugbyVisions latest world rankingsbelow Fiji and Samoa, both Tier 2 sides who do not play regular
international fixtures. A decade and a half after they were promoted from emerging-nation status to play
with the giants, Italy are still regarded as a minnow. They came close on the opening weekend to
achieving a nine-points-to-one upset against a sluggish France, but as so often before, fell just short. The
final play was symbolic: Mr Parisse, a man whose job is to martial his forwards, took on the responsibility
of a winning kick at goal, a burden which should have been borne by one of the backs. He missed. Even an
all-time great can only carry a weak team so far.

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 The Azzurris continued poor performances are puzzling. Superficially, they seem to have most of the
ingredients that an emerging national team might need to succeed. The most obvious is that Italians are
generally good at sport. The Global Sports Index (http://www.sportcal.com
/home/ournews_article.aspx?articleid=108055&pageno=1) , a ranking compiled by Sportcal, a marketing
intelligence company, reckons that Italy is currently the ninth-most athletic nation in the world, when
weighted across 140 different disciplines. Italians benefit from being both numerous, since there are 60m
of them, and prosperous, with $35,000 GDP per capitaeach of which are important factors when it
comes to delivering success on the playing field. A paper published in 2008 by SPLISS
(http://dspace.library.uu.nl/bitstream/handle/1874/305729
/De_Bosscher_Bingham_Shibli_Van_Bottenburg_De_Knop_The_Global_Sporting_Arms_Race_2008_.pdf?se
, a research group which analyses policy factors leading to international sporting success, discovered that
34% of the variance between countries athletic achievement could be explained by how many citizens
they had, whilst a further 17% was due to GDP per capita. Put simply, these background socioeconomic
factors were responsible for about half of the difference between nations sporting prowess.

By those measures, Italians should be bringing home a hefty number of medals and trophies anyway:
their homeland is in the top 30 for both population and GDP per capita. But even after taking into
account those advantages, Italy outperforms its expected level of sporting achievement, excelling most
famously at football, but also at skiing, swimming, cycling, volleyball, tennis and water polo. In fact,
SPLISS identified Italy as an exception amongst European countries of a similar size, since it exceeded its
projections by so much, and so little of its athletic success could be explained by socioeconomic factors.
Rather, SPLISS celebrated Italy as an example of having an effective sports development strategy. The
country was good at controlling the meso layer of variables (i.e. sporting policies), which sit between the
macro (population, GDP) and micro (individual athletes and coaches).

And the evidence suggests that at least some of this strategic expertise has been transferred into Italian
rugby. Participation, which is one of SPLISSs pillars of successful sports policy, is high: Italy has
82,000 registered players, more than Scotland and Wales, and 25,000 more than Argentina, who reached
the World Cup semi-finals in both 2007 and 2015. Of course, having more amateurs involved in a sport
doesnt guarantee success. Japan and the United States both have more registered players than Ireland,
who are vying for a third consecutive Six Nations title. But SPLISS have reported a significant correlation
between mass participation and medals won during the Olympic Games. Having a big, constantly
refreshing pool of talent certainly makes it easier to sustain success. The annals of international sport are
littered with one-hit wonders, like the Kenyan cricket team who reached the semi-finals of the 2003
World Cup with a pool of only 5,000 players, or New Zealands Tall Blacks, who finished fourth at the
2002 FIBA World Cup, despite basketball not being one of the 20 most popular sports in the country
(http://www.sportnz.org.nz/assets/uploads/attachments/managing-sport/research/sport-and-active-
recreation-in-the-lives-of-new-zealand-adults.pdf) . This is an obstacle that Italian rugby has cleared.

In fact, the Italian Rugby Federation (FIR) has done a decent job of installing most of SPLISSs strategic
pillars. The availability of training facilities, for example, is crucial, and one of the reasons why football
has become a truly competitive global game (since it needs only four markers for goalposts and a ball),
whilst ice hockey is dominated by the Big Six (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Six_(ice_hockey)) of

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 Canada, America, Finland, Russia, Sweden and the Czech Republic, who between them have collected
every Olympic medal for the last 40 years. No complaints here for the Azzurri: Italy had more rugby clubs
than Australia or New Zealand at the last count in 2011 (https://en.wikipedia.org
/wiki/List_of_rugby_union_playing_countries) , whilst it has nine academies to supplement the
national centre in Parma. Those players who do come through the system get many opportunities to
compete for club and country, and to measure themselves against rivals, individually or as a team
another important ingredient for success, according to SPLISS. Since 2010, two Italian domestic sides
have taken part in the Pro12, the annual league for Irish, Welsh and Scottish teams, and whilst they have
struggled against some of Europes stronger teams they have also been exposed on a weekly basis to some
of the worlds best players. Meanwhile, the Italian squad for the 2015 Rugby World Cup could feasibly
have fielded an entire side of players with experience in the English and French leagues, which are the
strongest in the northern hemisphere. Many of Mr Parisses compatriots, though perhaps not quite at his
level, have been imported to top clubs.

And then there is the Six Nations, exposing Italy to high quality annual international competition. Most
emerging teams could only dream of such access. In rugby union, both the developing European
countries (Georgia and Romania) and the Pacific Island nations (Fiji, Samoa and Tonga) have long
complained of being denied regular fixtures against elite teams. In cricket, Ireland, long regarded as the
best team beyond the ten Test-playing nations, played just nine one-day internationals against Test
opposition between the 2011 and 2015 World Cups. In rugby league, no emerging nation has participated
more than once in the Four Nations, suffering thrashings at the hands of Australia, England and New
Zealand. Aside from football, perhaps basketball has been most successful at integrating emerging
nations. Basketball has grown significantly in countries like France, Spain and Turkey in recent years,
benefiting from its inclusion at every Olympics since 1936 and the continued expansion of its World Cup,
which will include 32 nations in 2019.

Could coaching, another SPLISS policy area, be to blame for Italys failures? Not at the national level:
their last four coaches have been a World-Cup-winning player (Sir John Kirwan), a former coach of the
French side (Pierre Berbizier), a former coach of the South African side (Nick Mallett) and currently the
former assistant French coach Jacques Brunel. The pattern is similar to that of Sri Lankas national
cricket team, who benefited from a series of fine coaches, many with experience of managing some of the
worlds best sides, after being awarded Test status in 1982. A similar strategy involves bringing
inspirational former players back into the national set-up in a management role, as the Argentinian rugby
team have done with legendary scrum-half Agustin Pichot, whilst Greeces retired basketball captain,
Panagiotis Giannakis, led the country to the final of the 2006 FIBA World Championship as a coach. Sri
Lanka, Argentina and Greece have all enjoyed sustained success in their respective sports: the Azzurri
havent.

With so many factors going in their favour, it seems almost implausible that Mr Parisses compatriots
havent been able to compete at the highest level. But whilst they have benefitted from good participation
levels, facilities, opportunities and management at the national level, there is one policy area which has
been neglected: youth development. Italy does produce decent players, as the number being recruited by
top clubs suggestbut not enough skillful ones. The FIR has introduced a doctrine of progetta statura

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 (http://www.rugbyworld.com/in-the-mag/rugby-rant/rugby-rant-italys-club-game-is-dying-32724)
(Project Size), which prioritises taller and heavier young players for development, in the hope that they
will compete with their ever-growing international opponents. Additionally, many in Italy believe that
their youth coaches are inferior to those in other top countries: Paolo Pacitti, a leading Italian rugby
journalist, argues that the quality of training is poor compared to that in Argentina, and that player
development has been neglected in the south of the country. This is emblematic of deeper administrative
failings: The Italian Rugby Union is not particularly forward-looking, says Rob Kitson, rugby union
correspondent of the Guardian.

Italys skills shortage, the result of a relatively poor youth development policy and unenlightened
administration, is the only compelling explanation for their continued failures. The problem is
particularly acute at fly-half, the player who makes the majority of attacking decisions and is usually
responsible for kicking goals. In the last five years, six different players have started in that position for
the Azzurri, only two of whom learnt to play their rugby in Italy. Those men wearing ten might have been
tallthey averaged just a shade under six feetbut they were also woeful kickers. In fact, in the last five
years, Italy have had the worst kickers of any major rugby-playing nation, including lowly Fiji, Tonga and
Samoa. Data collected by Goalkickers.co.za (http://goalkickers.co.za/) , which measures kicks and
weights them according to difficulty, show that Italy succeeded with just 63% of attempts. When all other
Tier 1 nations, barring Argentina, are converting kicks at least 72% of the time, that is a serious problem,
especially in a sport where nearly half of all points come from the boot. After missing that final drop-kick
against France, Mr Parisses team-mates revealed that he frequently practices them in training; fans
pointed out that he had scored them for both club (https://www.youtube.com
/watch?v=HGhwnRChn0w) and country (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsWpaEA4L-c&t=0m30s)
, the only forward to have done so in the professional era. If Italian rugby teams are ever to thrive at the
highest level, they must focus more on developing players with such flairand good feet.

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