The Italy Rugby Team

Italy Rugby Shirt: The Italian team play in a bright light blue shirt, with white shorts and matching blue socks. The strip has largely remained unchanged over the years apart from the more fitting style which has been developed throughout the last decade. The shirt is produced by Kappa and has logos on it from Cariparma and Piacenza which is a large Italian bank.

Brief History: There are two arguments for who first introduced rugby to Italy. Some believe French students started playing it at universities while others believe the British brought the game with them some 15 years before in 1895. It wasn’t until 1929 that rugby started to flourish in Italy when the first Italian championship took place involving 16 teams. With this said Italy was still behind the rest of the world and struggled to compete with the likes of England and New Zealand. During the 1980’s foreign players/coaches made a huge impression, with New Zealander John Kirwan going on to coach the team. Italy was still not competing in the 5 nations and for a period in 1996 after beating some of the five nation teams it was believed that England maybe dropped and replaced by Italy. However this was not to be the case and it was until the year 2000 Italy was allowed to play within the tournament. Results have been somewhat mixed since joining the six nation however it has spurred on domestic level rugby which is now at a level not seen before.

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