Coach Sergio Parisse says Italian rugby is "more complete" and "grown-up"

Since ending the last Six Nations, Italy have lost heavily to Samoa and narrowly to Scotland in a summer tournament in South Africa, shipped a half-century to Australia and also lost at home to Argentina in the autumn. The only relief came in beating Fiji.

“We lost something in June and November, so the obvious aim is to restore ourselves to the standard we reached a year ago,” said Parisse. “Since about 2008 all the questions were about our good scrum but we showed then how different things are now.

“We are more complete as a team and have shown we can play in our backs, use another kind of rugby. We beat Ireland and France playing that way, not just by dominating in the forwards, and now this season we have a group of new young players coming into the team.”

Prime among them is Tommaso Allan, an Italian-born Scottish age-grade cap playing for Perpignan who was raised in South Africa and has thrown in his lot with the mother’s country rather than his father’s.

In 11 years of trying Italy have never found a decent fly-half successor to Diego Dominguez, like Parisse an Argentine exile with Stade Francais, but 20-year-old Tommy may finally be it.

“Tommaso needs all the support we can give him,” said Parisse. “The No10 position is one where we have had a lot of players who have never played consistently, never for more than three or four games, and we have been looking for a genuine long-term prospect. We have faith that in Tommaso we have the answer.”

Article source: http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/news/rugby-wood-heads-new-deals-quintet-155919976--spt.html

Coach Sergio Parisse says Italian rugby is "more complete" and "grown-up"