Italy’s coach blamed World Rugby scheduling for their All Blacks thrashing. Does he have a point?

Gonzalo Quesada delivered an epic post-match rant in which he blamed the scoreline, as opposed to the result, on anything but himself and his players.

All Blacks-Italy tests tend to fall into one of two categories: blow-outs or error ridden eyesores. As then assistant All Blacks coach Steve Hansen memorably put it after the two teams served up a steaming pile of ordure in Christchurch in 2009: “Flush the dunny and move on.”

The All Blacks have won all 18 games between the two sides, posting 50-plus points in 11 of them.

The one-way traffic includes some fearful World Cup hidings – 70-6 in the opening game of the inaugural World Cup in 1987; 101-3 in 1999; 70-7 in 2003; 96-17 in 2023. Paradoxically, though, the Azzurri achieved their best-ever result against the All Blacks at the 2019 tournament in Japan: the game was cancelled due to the threat posed by Typhoon Hagibis and treated as a 0-0 draw.

Interspersed with these floggings have been unsightly scraps, most recently in Turin in 2024, best sent south of the S bend and forgotten. Critics faulted the All Blacks for allowing themselves to be dragged down to their opponents’ level but the better Italian teams aren’t easily put away. This dogged mindset goes back to Nick Mallet, a former Springboks coach and coach of Italy from 2007 to 2011, who believed building self-belief started with limiting the margin of defeat.

Saturday night’s match in Wellington was a bit of both. Indeed, it was a classic game of two halves as the All Blacks were perhaps fortunate to have their noses in front at halftime but ran away with it after the break.

Coach Dave Rennie must’ve been relieved he hadn’t followed the advice of the pundits who’d urged wholesale personnel changes because “it’s just Italy”. As Wallabies coach in 2022, Rennie rested 13 players for an end of year tour match in Florence: Italy won 28-27 and the new year was barely under way when he was advised via a zoom call that his services were no longer required.

The great Wallaby five eighth Mark Ella, regarded by many contemporaries as the best player of their generation even though he retired aged 25, said of his time coaching in Italy that he’d heard every excuse for things going wrong except “It was my fault”.

In that proud tradition, Italy’s Argentinean coach Gonzalo Quesada delivered an epic post-match rant in which he blamed the scoreline, as opposed to the result, on anything but himself and his players. (It must have been a dream interview for Sky TV’s Ben Castle who just had to lob the generic “What did you make of it” softball question then stand well back.)

Quesada took aim at the “super poor” referee (Frenchman Luc Ramos), Wellington’s weather and the schedule imposed on Italy by World Rugby. Obviously, everyone visiting Wellington complains about the weather and he has a point about the travel: while the All Blacks shuttle between Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch over the course of the first three rounds of the Nations Championship, Italy’s itinerary evokes the “If it’s Tuesday, this must be Belgium” freneticism of the whirlwind European package tours once popular with sexually deprived young Kiwis on OE: in the space of a fortnight Italy plays Japan in Tokyo, New Zealand in Wellington and Australia in Perth.

Quesada’s spray was impressive but he was operating in a performance space with a very high benchmark: deflecting blame for one’s sporting failure.

For instance, the late and at times chubby Shane Warne’s explanation for testing positive to a banned substance and being thrown out of the 2003 World Cup was that he’d taken a diuretic tablet given to him by his mother who wanted him to look svelte on television. Dick Pound, World Anti-Drug Agency boss and proud owner of one of the great noms de porn, reckoned this was up there with “I got it from the toilet seat”.

Then there was Zambian tennis player Lighton Ndefwayl who attributed a loss to his jockstrap being too tight and his opponent’s habit of farting as he served which “made me lose my concentration for which I am famous throughout Zambia”.

However, New Zealand rugby fans shouldn’t be too dismissive of others’ unwillingness to take defeat on the chin. The claim, persisted with embarrassingly long after the event, that the All Blacks lost to the Springboks in the 1995 World Cup final in Johannesburg because they were poisoned at the team hotel by a waitress named Suzie provoked hoots of derision throughout most of the rugby world.

No proof of Suzie’s existence was ever found despite All Blacks coach Laurie Mains reportedly hiring a private detective to scour the earth for her. While some All Blacks undoubtedly suffered food poisoning, the South African view was that they shouldn’t have rolled the dice at the seafood buffet on the eve of the biggest game of their lives.