Italy captain Michele Lamaro praised his workforce for “embracing the challenge” of a 10-point halftime deficit to expire convincing 38-17 World Cup Pool A winners over Uruguay in Nice on Thursday (AEST).
The South Americans, searching for a shock win to reflect their victory over Fiji 4 years in the past in Japan, led 17-7 at halftime as Italy had two gamers despatched to the sin bin.
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But when Uruguay captain Andres Vilaseca was yellow carded early within the second interval, momentum swung firmly in direction of Italy, with the workforce happening to attain 4 transformed tries.
“They put us under a lot of pressure but in these moments, what counts the most is how strong is the team and in the second half we showed that and smashed everything we could,” mentioned Lamaro.
“We got in the changing room at halftime, we huddled it and embraced the challenge.
“We stepped back on the field with confidence. Stick together and every single moment win the little battles to win the final war.”
Italy coach Kieran Crowley mentioned it was really a recreation of two halves on the Stade de Nice.
“In the first half we turned over seven balls in our 40-metre area, our discipline wasn’t good enough, we had two men off,” the Kiwi mentioned.
“17-7 at halftime, we said we’re not about to chase the game, we just wanted to be more direct, the boys focused on that … and took it to Uruguay.
“We had a second half to get us out of the hole we’d dug. We’ll bank that and go on to the next one.”
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Crowley added that as quickly as his workforce reverted to conserving possession, issues improved.
“It’s an 80-minute game! The heart’s still going, but it was a very good performance in the second half,” Crowley mentioned.
“The boys were pretty good in that second half, doing what we wanted to do. ” “The pace of the game in the second half, they were a little bit suspect at the end,” he mentioned of Uruguay working out of steam.
“But that’s rugby, you wear teams down by keeping the ball.” Having seen off Namibia 52-8 of their opening match, Italy have now amassed 10 factors from their two opening Pool A video games to set themselves up completely forward of two large matches in opposition to group favourites New Zealand and France, each in Lyon, on September 29 and October 6 respectively.
Uruguay had pushed a second-string France facet shut of their opener earlier than taking place 27-12 and can goal their match in opposition to Namibia on September 27 as their must-win recreation from the pool section.
Uruguay coach Esteban Meneses mentioned his gamers and employees did their greatest, however the “Italians were superior to us in the second half and we were not able to reel them in”, because the Azzurri scored 31 unanswered factors.
“The squad has shown enthusiasm, momentum and we’ll still keep working on that. Italy are a major team with a lot of potential and we weren’t able to match such a team.
“We made some errors which handed Italy the opportunity to gain momentum. In the second half, physically it was clear we weren’t up to the game and we suffered.”
Source web site: www.foxsports.com.au
