Italy began their Rugby World Cup campaign in Saint-Etienne with a seven-try, bonus-point victory over Namibia.
Lorenzo Cannone and Paolo Garbisi scored Italy’s first-half tries while Namibia was reduced to 14 men.
Gerswin Mouton narrowed Africa’s deficit to nine points.
After halftime, Italy surged ahead of Namibia, with goals from Dino Lamb, Ange Capuozzo, Hame Faiva, Manuel Zuliani, and Paolo Odogwu.
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Relive Italy’s decisive victory over Namibia
Italy has been a constant presence at Rugby World Cups, but has yet to go past the group stage in nine prior appearances.
They labored at times but showed moments of class in the second period, particularly Capuozzo’s length-of-the-field effort that earned a try bonus point.
However, tougher tests await them, and they will need to improve on their opening performance if they are to surprise New Zealand or host France and qualify from Pool A.
Namibia had responded well after contributing to their own demise in the early stages, with hooker Torsten van Jaarsveld seeing yellow for collapsing an Italian maul near the tryline, with Cannone powering over from the resulting line-out and Garbisi capitalizing when a Namibia line-out was overthrown.
Mouton’s response score was wonderfully constructed by fly-half Tiaan Swanepoel, and they fought valiantly throughout, but they have now lost all 23 World Cup matches since their debut in 1999.
They will play the All Blacks in Toulouse on Friday, while Italy will not play again until September 20th, when they will face Uruguay in Nice.
Allan, Capuozzo, Brex, Morisi, Ioane; Garbisi, Varney; Fischetti, Nicotera, Ferrari, Lamb, Ruzza, Negri, Lamaro, Cannone.
Faiva, Nemer, Riccioni, Sisi, Zuliani, Page-Relo, Odogwu, and Bruno are the replacements.
Namibian players include Rossouw, Mouton, Deysel, Burger, Greyling, Swanepoel, Stevens, Sethie, Van Jaarsveld, Coetzee, Ludick, Uanivi, Conradie, Retief, and Hardwick.
Van van Westhuizen, Benade, Viviers, De Klerk, Gaoseb, Theron, Van der Bergh, Malan are the replacements.
