A month of great rugby is about to begin: tomorrow, Italia hosts world champions South Africa
The Azzurri are embarking on a four-week run of fixtures against the top national teams, with crucial matches to improve their ranking and put the side to the test despite the injuries
There could not have been a tougher opener for the Italian rugby team in the autumn phase of the new Nations Championship, a clash between the two hemispheres (with the… exception of Japan, situated in the South) involving the 12 best national teams on the planet.
Tomorrow at the Allianz Stadium in Turin – in other words, Juventus’s stadium – Italia will host South Africa, currently the strongest and most successful team on the international stage, having won the last two World Cups, in 2019 and 2023.
Argentina and Fiji will then be the opponents for head coach Gonzalo Quesada’s team on 14 and 21 November respectively, in Genoa and Udine.
Based on the results achieved by the various national teams, the ‘draw’ for the ‘Finals’ will be drawn up: six matches over three days to be played at Twickenham Stadium in London. The tournament will conclude with the grand final between the champions of the two hemispheres.
The new competition builds on time-honoured traditions: the classic international test matches, with teams from the Northern Hemisphere travelling to the Southern Hemisphere at the start of summer, and those from the Southern Hemisphere doing the same in the autumn. These are matches of great appeal and significance, as well as being useful for determining positions in the international rankings: even though there was no trophy at stake, no one in the world of rugby would ever have called them ‘friendlies’.
