Italy's Long Relationship With Rugby...

Italy will come to Cardiff this Saturday as huge underdogs when they face the double European champions. However, the Italians are improving year on year, and have beaten everyone apart from England since their acceptance into the competition fourteen years ago. They are no longer a team that coaches can 'experiment' against. They will be ready to improve once more this Spring and will target that England scalp.

Rugby is unquestionably on the up in Italy, the demand for the Stadio Flaminio being expanded has seen them move to the Stadio Olimpico. A move that has seen them attract larger crowds than Wales, with 80,000 cramming in to see the All Blacks. For a nation whose national sport is football this is a major feat.

So how did rugby become the game it is today in Italy, for the answer we need to go back to the 1930's. The Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini was in power in Italy and propaganda was an important tool for him. He pushed rugby in his propaganda, the aggressive nature of the sport was something Mussolini thought would benefit young men.

The poster above is basic but the Italian below is the most interesting part, and loosely translated it reads; “The game of rugby, a combat sport, and should be practiced widely among the fascist youth.” The name below is that of the secretary of the Fascist party, Achille Starace who had a prominent role in the regime.

Although the parts of Mussolini's regime have been criticised and are not to everyone's tastes, he certainly found the essence of rugby very acutely. Mussolini wanted members of the fascist youth to play rugby a game that is very physical but very disciplined, these are also two important characteristics we would expect of a militant figure.

This was a new age in Italian history and rugby was a new sport. Mussolini wanted to ship out the old and bring in the new. It was 'a new sport, for a new man', creating the 'new man' was something Mussolini hoped rugby help to achieve.

Italian history and sport has come a long way since the 1930's, but Saturday lunchtime the Italian team will still show all the passion that they did 80 years ago when they were introduced to the oval ball.