No doubt at some point this weekend during the England vs Italy game you will hear someone say "Italy aren't as good as they used to be", you may even say it yourself and with no six nations win for more than 4 years (28th Feb 2015) its possibly quite hard to disagree with. But is it true?
Undoubtedly some of the feeling that Italy haven't progressed is that until Jan 2012 they were ranked above each of those Nations and fairly closely parallelled Scotland's ranking.
One thing however is clear, Italy's total ranking points haven't really changed much since their inception in 2004, this however is partly due to the way the rankings are calculated, as the IRB use a "points exchange" system meaning when a team wins a game they take points from the other team.
However for Italy this means that because a large proportion of their fixtures are in the six nations they don't take many points from other mid ranked nations as they only play them rarely.
When we consider Italy's record against their fellow mid ranked sides (i.e. excluding games against the other 6 nations and Rugby Championship sides) its actually very good with just 3 defeats in 11 games stretching back to 2014 and of those defeats two were away from home against sides they subsequently beat (Fiji and Japan). This compares to 20 successive defeats against the other sides stretching back to their Nov 2016 win over South Africa.
Italy's problem is not that they are getting better or getting worse rather that they are trapped in a international rugby equivalent of groundhog day. This is perhaps why Conor O'Shea has come out and backed the Nations league this week as any relegation (and its by no means guaranteed it would be Italy especially if the USA and Japan are included), might give a side a chance to regroup and rebuild something that is more difficult with the annual cycle of six nations fixtures his side face.
If international rugby is to thrive the likes of Italy and Georgia as well as the Pacific Islands need to be supported and the balance found between not giving them the opportunities to compete with the top sides and but also still allowing them to compete with one another.
So are Italy getting better or getting worse?
First of all lets look at the IRB world rankings; Italy are currently ranked 14th in the world, behind Georgia, Tonga and Japan.Undoubtedly some of the feeling that Italy haven't progressed is that until Jan 2012 they were ranked above each of those Nations and fairly closely parallelled Scotland's ranking.
One thing however is clear, Italy's total ranking points haven't really changed much since their inception in 2004, this however is partly due to the way the rankings are calculated, as the IRB use a "points exchange" system meaning when a team wins a game they take points from the other team.
However for Italy this means that because a large proportion of their fixtures are in the six nations they don't take many points from other mid ranked nations as they only play them rarely.
When we consider Italy's record against their fellow mid ranked sides (i.e. excluding games against the other 6 nations and Rugby Championship sides) its actually very good with just 3 defeats in 11 games stretching back to 2014 and of those defeats two were away from home against sides they subsequently beat (Fiji and Japan). This compares to 20 successive defeats against the other sides stretching back to their Nov 2016 win over South Africa.
Italy's problem is not that they are getting better or getting worse rather that they are trapped in a international rugby equivalent of groundhog day. This is perhaps why Conor O'Shea has come out and backed the Nations league this week as any relegation (and its by no means guaranteed it would be Italy especially if the USA and Japan are included), might give a side a chance to regroup and rebuild something that is more difficult with the annual cycle of six nations fixtures his side face.
If international rugby is to thrive the likes of Italy and Georgia as well as the Pacific Islands need to be supported and the balance found between not giving them the opportunities to compete with the top sides and but also still allowing them to compete with one another.
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