Dal SUNDAY TIMES

January 12 1997

Stephen Jones argues that it is time for the Five Nations unions to drop their outdated opposition to Italy joining the championship Rugby Union: Five Nations championship preview Italians must be included in rugby's inner circle While we are all savouring the prospect of the Five Nations championship, let us fervently hope and pray that it will be the last in its present form. It is time for the five competing nations to end an insulting insularity. It is time for the Six Nations championship. Any further delay in allowing Italy to enter would be a disgrace. Italy's entry has been mooted for years, but almost exclusively by Italians. The five countries have drummed up a welter of excuses, some valid, others entirely spurious. In the days of amateur pomposity just past, the Irish Rugby Union (among others) privately whispered that Italy were beyond the pale because their players were effectively professional. That never stopped Ireland playing against New Zealand, South Africa or France, of course. It was just used against Italy.

It was a little more valid to point out that the championship has a wonderful chemistry and that to tamper with the ingredients might be dangerous ­ that Italy were too weak and wan, that half-empty grounds would kill the traditional image of packed stadiums with thousands of people effectively locked outside; that to add another Test match to the annual programme of every nation would increase pressure on players.
Yet there is no longer any hiding place.

For a start, on moral grounds the Irish and Scottish Unions can surely now do nothing other than vigorously campaign for the entry of Italy. You can no longer demean and look down on a team if that team has beaten you fair and square. Last season, after the Scottish Rugby Union, appallingly, had downgraded a match between the two teams in Rieti to non-cap status, even though the full Scottish team was chosen, the Italians won a thumping victory.
By those standards, Ireland should either be busily hoovering the red carpet or else announcing their own relegation and allowing Italy to compete in their place. They were beaten in Italy in 1995, were thrashed by Italy in Dublin last week. It is also germane to remember that Italy were without Giacheri and Checchinato, key forwards, Giovanelli, their explosive captain, and Francescato, their most accomplished back. Good job for Ireland that Italy didn't bring the first team.

And if any of the Unions raise the objection of over-playing of players they should be shot, now that they have made internationals 10-a-penny. In any case, one major new annual international could bring them at least £ 1/2 m a time each.
What of playing strength, and support?
Italy have won 13 of their 30 most recent Tests, and this in a powerful fixture list. They are well-coached by the hedgehog-haired, voluble Georges Coste. The Italian team can be maddeningly brittle and often temperamental. If and when they enter the Six Nations, the day when they win the title will still be long away. They crashed heavily to England at Twickenham in the autumn when they were so lacking in self-confidence at the start that they were sunk without trace before their virtues surfaced.

Yet they played heroically to take Australia to the wire in Australia in 1994, ran England close in the 1995 World Cup, could have beaten Wales earlier this season. As for crowds, they drew well over 20,000 last season when they played New Zealand in the superb stadium in Bologna and no fewer than 45,000 when they met South Africa in Rome's Olympic Stadium a few weeks later. You also have to say that if they are still keeping out Italy on grounds of low playing standards, then why do they let in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales?

But all of this is to miss the main point. We are discussing Italy's worth as they are, not as they would become if they were allowed to enter. What established authority has never realised is the galvanic boost that Six Nations competition would give to Italian rugby from top to bottom. For a start, it would be something the Italian public would relate to, because, like the American public, what they cannot do is to relate to the concept of non-competition one-offs.

Paulo Ricci Bitti, a much respected rugby writer from Il Messaggiro in Rome, says: "When the team play what is known as a friendly, with nothing to win, no trophy or league, it is very difficult for the Italian public to understand. They do understand a proper event with a table." And if the public cannot grasp the friendly concept then neither can Italian television. At the moment, rugby is shown on a small, scrambled station with small penetration, a disaster for development. The Italian Rugby Federation has received encouraging noises from national terrestrial TV that coverage of a Six Nations event would interest them.

The advantages for George Costes and his squad would be practically limitless. The sheer, relentless intensity of the competition, the powerful focus it bringsto mind and techniques, would plane away rough edges on body and psyche at a rapid rate. It would give Italy sorely-needed confidence. What allows the established nations to stay generally ahead of the chasing pack is nothing more complicated than intensity of competition. And it would give European rugby another pillar, give another venue for the glorious socialibilty and culture of the whole winter shebang. Surely, only the ranks of the jealous and the dullard can now deny Italy, those who fear defeat or those who wish only for dull comforts, have no sense of joy that the rugby world could complete its conquering of yet another key country, and benignly annexe it for its own use.

All roads lead to Rome. No more mulling needed from the Five Nations Committee, who would make the decision, no more patronising. Just immediate action. The time for Italy is now.