The 'quiet' happiness of the rugby Azzurri

ROME - If in the dressing room of Scotland at the end of the game lost to Italia 18-15 at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome the prevailing feeling is frustration - the word of captain Sione Tuipulotu - among the Azzurri reigns the awareness of having done well, of having achieved the result but without easy enthusiasm. Gonzalo Quesada's group is young but mature. A maturity that you can breathe, that transpires from everyone's words. The victory against Scotland was well deserved, but no one is getting too big-headed: 'The opponents will surely study us a bit more now, but we know that we have to work hard to gain respect,' said Tommaso Menoncello.

It may be that Italia are more used to winning than the team of just a few years ago, it may be that positive results are no longer just a matter of chance or the result of an adversary's bad day, but the feeling is that there is a different ability to deal with a tournament as tough and never easy as the Six Nations. "When we win we don't want to get too unbalanced. I know how the team reacts to certain wins and certain games. Sometimes it is easy to start well but it is more difficult to confirm," emphasised captain Michele Lamaro, inviting himself and the whole team to already put their heads towards the next match in Dublin: "I think Ireland will prepare very hard, we have to do it too. We have to go back to basics, continue doing what we have done well".

Pylon Simone Ferrari, awarded as the best player on the pitch, was on the same wavelength: "We think about one game at a time. Now we pick up from Monday and immediately head to the next one with a lot of work and humility. Nothing has happened for us. We have to go beyond this game we won and, in short, get right back to work with a lot of focus. The focus will have to be on discipline, emphasised coach Quesada. "That was one of the points we still have to work on. If we suffered a little today at the end it is because all the kicks we took allowed Scotland to come into our camp and have possession. I'm not lying when I say that Ben O'Keeffe (the referee, ed) was a bit harder on us but that's not an alibi. We took a lot of avoidable kicks. For me an axis of development will be discipline, if we don't want to lose to Ireland we have to raise our standards," he said. Ferrari echoed him: 'There are things we can still improve on, discipline is one of them, especially offside. We should be much more precise, however to avoid offside it is enough to be one step back, two steps back, it doesn't cost us anything, so, here, it is to be reviewed and improved in the immediate future'.

Talking about a habit of winning for Italrugby is probably exaggerated, as Menoncello points out: "Habit I don't know, it happens more often because we are growing and we are happy to be able to bring this kind of performance and victories because we work every week for it." However, as results improve, expectations also grow. "That expectations are created is normal. I prefer that, that there are expectations around the team, but we know where we still need to improve, and what we need to work on," Quesada continued, emphasising that "performances like today's serve the whole movement. What depends on us is to keep improving and to go out there and do what we did today, to be an inspiration to the guys who play, to all the teams.