Gaudino: Italy always give everything
Italy have one real aim this season and that is qualifying for the World Cup in 2017 after missing out on the 2010 and 2014 tournaments. Sevens rugby and the Olympics have never been significant factor for the Italians and it is very noticible that Italy were the first to seize on the significance of this year's Six Nations as soon as it was confirmed that the next World Cup would move forward a year.
Published by John Birch, February 4th, 2015
3 minute read
"We’ll take it game by game", she said, "but certainly we’ll be looking to win at least two games as we did last year. The first one against Ireland will be a hard one but we’ll do our best."
"When we missed qualification last year which we weren’t happy about - it had been our target and we wanted to achieve it, but it didn’t happen. So this year we are determined to get good results so that next year we can complete our qualification for the World Cup in 2017.
"There are few changes to the squad from last year. There’ve been some new arrivals of young players and overall it is a mix of youth and experience.
"Of the the new players, Jessica Bussato is a promising fly-half, and Federica Cipolla is a wing who made her debut in the exhibition match against Scotland at the end of last year - she had a very good match. Isabella Locatelli made her debut in November too - she plays second row or back row - she’s also a very good player and finally Novella Russo is a scrum half who is very young, she’s only 19!"
Under Gaudino's captaincy Italy have risen from competing to avoid the Wooden Spoon to a well deserved fourth place last year. Having caught up with Wales and Scotland,what do Italy need to do to challenge Ireland, France and England?
"Undoubtedly we have to increase the number of players we have in Italy to have a bigger selection", she said.
"I think that by increasing the number of players we have a good chance of improving the level. As part of thisour forming an U18 teams for the European Sevens Championship in Sweden in September wasa good step forward - we’ve never had representation at Under 18s before."
"Publicising the game is important and from this year we will have streaming of our games in Italy. This is a step forward for us as last year I think we only streamed one game. It is a start and we hope in future to get onto the TV.
"This year we play at France at home again, and that reminds us about 2013. That was a beautiful victory, but we try to win every game. There will be a difficult games this year, and we know the opponents are very hard, but we always give everything".