Samoa vs. Italy 2024

[Duluth]

Ex-England U20 fullback Matt Gallagher set for Italy debut

Former Bath and England U20 fullback Matt Gallagher is in line to make his Italy debut this Friday against Samoa...

15 Matt GALLAGHER (Benetton Rugby, debut)
14 Louis LYNAGH (Benetton Rugby, 2 caps)
13 Juan Ignacio BREX (Benetton Rugby, 35 caps)
12 Tommaso MENONCELLO (Benetton Rugby, 17 caps)
11 Monty IOANE (Lyon, 30 caps)
10 Paolo GARBISI (Toulon, 36 caps)
9 Stephen VARNEY (Gloucester Rugby, 29 caps)
8 Ross VINTCENT (Exeter Chiefs, 4 caps)
7 Michele LAMARO (Benetton Rugby, 38 caps) – captain
6 Alessandro IZEKOR (Benetton Rugby, 2 caps)
5 Federico RUZZA (Benetton Rugby, 54 caps)
4 Niccolò CANNONE (Benetton Rugby, 41 caps)
3 Simone FERRARI (Benetton Rugby, 53 caps)
2 Gianmarco LUCCHESI (Benetton Rugby, 22 caps)
1 Danilo FISCHETTI (Zebre Parma, 41 caps)

Replacements
16 Loris ZARANTONELLO (Castres, debut)
17 Mirco SPAGNOLO (Benetton Rugby, 5 caps)
18 Giosuè ZILOCCHI (Benetton Rugby, 21 caps)
19 Edoardo IACHIZZI (Benetton Rugby, 6 caps)
20 Manuel ZULIANI (Benetton Rugby, 21 caps)
21 Lorenzo CANNONE (Benetton Rugby, 19 caps)
22 Martin PAGE-RELO (Lyon, 8 caps)
23 Leonardo MARIN (Benetton Rugby, 9 caps)

[Daffy Jaffy]

This is live on TVNZ One and TVNZ Plus at 3:55pm Friday -

[Bones]

Did they run out of capital letters before Taramai and restock after McFarland?

[Tim]

Afa Moleli on the bench is a young player (20?) from Auckland's University club. From Hawkes Bay originally, IIRC.

[Tim]

Danny Toala just scored, and with the conversion, the scores are tied 25 - 25 after 60 mins.

[Tim]

@Tim said in Samoa vs. Italy 2024:

Afa Moleli on the bench is a young player (20?) from Auckland's University club. From Hawkes Bay originally, IIRC.

And he scored to clinch the game (33 - 25, 2 minutes to go). Solid unit now.

[Bovidae]

Leiua wasn't very good. A good start for Schwalger.

[African Monkey]

Just watched it now. How did that Samoa side beat a full strength Italy side haha. Half those Samoan players were barely NPC standard, a huge boilover imo.

[BerhamporeNinja]

@African-Monkey with 100% Samoan pride, cheehoo

[DaGrubster]

@African-Monkey

I think it must be a bit like the Drua home games effect in super rugby.

I couldn’t recognise any names in the Samoa side.

[African Monkey]

@DaGrubster There's a lot of guys in that side that do play for Moana Pasifika and others that played a bit at NPC level, but they weren't even regulars down at NPC level and a fair few of those Moana players aren't regulars for them either. So there are a fair few familiar faces to NZ viewers, but yeah, a lot if them ain't test level. It's a fairly weak Samoan line up, so this result is huge, and as for the heat factor, Italy were the ones camped on the Samoan try line for a lot of the 2nd half, and a lot of these Samoan players play in NZ anyway, unlike the Drua who are a proper Fiji based side made out of locals mostly.

I must say, Samoa's results against 6 nations opposition in the last 9 months or so has shown massive improvement. They could easily have won against Ireland and England and competed well against Argentina at the world cup as well to go with a big upset against Italy today.

It shows the benefits of having Moana Pasifika playing in a professional comp.