Italy as dangerous as Argentina, says Bok attack coach Tony Brown

Springbok attack coach Tony Brown said Italy are as dangerous as unpredictable Argentina and dismissed the notion that they aren’t a physical team ahead of their end-of-year-tour clash in Turin on Saturday.

The Boks have started their tour well, picking up a thumping 61-7 win over Japan in London, and a superb 32-17 win over France in Paris over the past weekend, and now take on a team they comfortably beat twice at home during the July internationals.

But on that occasion Italy sent a weakened team to South Africa, and the Boks used the occasion to test out a number of trick plays during the series, whereas this weekend will be a completely different encounter.

The hosts will be at full strength and brimming with confidence after a 26-19 upset of Australia over the past weekend, while the Boks will want to continue building momentum ahead of their massive clash against Ireland in Dublin next weekend.

Speaking at a Bok press conference on Monday, Brown was asked how the team would approach the game against Italy, considering they are not as physical a side as France, but he insisted that they will bring their own power game.

“Italy are a physical side. They do play a different game to France and pose different challenges with ball in hand. They are coached similarly to Argentina, who like to throw the ball around, and Italy are very similar,” explained Brown.

“Their game has improved a hell of a lot over the last couple of years and they are a dangerous side. So we have to make sure that we understand their threats and prepare as well as we can for them.”

Tough Italians

Bok flank Marco van Staden, who is expected to be one of a number of changes to the side that should also see Canan Moodie, Handré Pollard and Ethan Hooker, among others, come into the side, said that the Italian teams in the United Rugby Championship (URC), Benetton and Zebre, prove they will be tough.

“They have a lot of passion in their team, they bring their own kind of intensity, and at home it will be even higher with their home crowd behind them,” said Van Staden.

“As we’ve seen with their URC teams, they’re different at home, they measure up well against us South Africans in the URC, so they will come out with a lot of passion and intensity.”

Despite their impressive win over France, Brown was asked what the team could do better against Italy, and said keeping all their players on the field, after Lood de Jager’s red card, was top priority.

“Keeping 15 men on the field is what we always want to do. So just making sure we don’t have any of those moments where we lose a player and have to play with 14,” said Brown.

“But we have to commend the team. The amount of effort and physicality that the boys played with was huge, and we always felt as if we had France under pressure.”