Italy's continued rise endorses URC as a competition

If anyone still questions the South African decision to shift from Super Rugby to the Vodacom United Rugby Championship, a glance at the latest World Rugby Rankings might provide an answer to any doubts.

While Australia, the second strongest nation in Super Rugby, has slipped from ninth to 10th in the rankings, which is an all time low for a nation that won the World Cup twice in the 1990s, Italy have displaced them in their former position and are making a steady rise up the list which may continue when they visit Cardiff to play Wales in their final Guinness Six Nations fixture on Saturday.

The latest Men's World Rankings 📊

Italy move above Australia after beating Scotland 📈 pic.twitter.com/8ObxRuh0Vb

— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) March 12, 2024

The two top teams, the Springboks and Ireland, represent nations that have teams competing in the cross hemisphere URC competition.

And while England have courtesy of their win over Ireland strengthened a top five spot at the expense of Scotland, the latest rankings do endorse the strength and quality of the URC as a competition. Although they have yet to win in the Six Nations in this campaign, Wales still hold down eighth spot on the rankings.

So that makes it five of the top nine nations being represented in the URC, with a wide chasm now between the nations represented in Super Rugby - New Zealand are third on the rankings, with Australia slipping to their lowest ever listing since the World Rugby rankings came into being.

The rise of Italy is no longer a matter of speculation. While the Italian national team did bomb quite spectacularly in their big World Cup pool matches against New Zealand and France last year, they have regained their standing and started to make a statement during the course of the Six Nations.

They led for long parts of their opening game against England in Rome at the start of the championship before going down by three points. They weren’t at the races the following week away in Dublin against an Ireland team at that point in imperious form, but after that they’ve done well against two big teams.

Their draw against France away came close to being their first win in that country, and would arguably have been had what would have been a winning kick that the Italians argued was illegally charged by their opponents been retaken at the end of the game. And then came the thrilling win over Scotland, their first win at home in the Six Nations in 11 years.

BENETTON’S FORM GIVING ITALY A LEG UP

It came in front of the biggest crowd to have come to watch Italy play in Rome in many years, and the result is sure to just grow interest in the sport even further in that country. Speaking recently to Times Live, former Springbok captain and current Supersport analyst Jean de Villiers was in no doubt about why Italy was doing well.

“That wasn’t just a bit of luck,” said De Villiers after France had been held to a draw. “We’ve seen in the URC that Benetton’s rise and being in the top four for a couple of months now is reaping the rewards.

“To be able to be successful and to sustain that success you need a proper pipeline of players coming through. Benetton’s performance in the URC has established that they are certainly no pushover and can compete with the best. You can see the effect now of them being competitive week-in and week-out.”

It is of course relative to their failures in the past, but the other Italian team have also shown massive improvement, with Zebre Parma’s current 13th position on the URC log being a dramatic improvement on seasons past when they were perennial wooden spoonists. That can still happen of course, as they are just four points ahead of the last placed Hollywoodbets Sharks, but the Zebre did make a statement with their win over the Sharks in November. In most of the games they’ve lost, they’ve been more competitive than they were in the first two seasons.

It is just logical that the inclusion of the South African teams in a competition that expanded from the old PRO14, with the exposure it gives to new challenges such as the physicality of the South African approach, the power game and altitude, will have played a big role in pushing the quality of the Italian play upwards.

And while Wales are lagging in the Six Nations, a close look at their performances also shows that any panic about the future of the Wales national team might be misplaced - they’ve been quite clear that they are rebuilding and yet lost to Scotland by just one point at the start of the competition and their loss to England was by just two before they ran into a French team in resurgent form this past weekend.