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Italy's South African links could be crucial

Sunday 25 September 2011, 5:43PM

By Rugby World Cup 2011

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NELSON

Italy's quest to reach the quarter-finals of the Rugby World Cup for the first time is being helped by a handful of players and staff born and brought up in a country that has won the Webb Ellis Cup twice - South Africa.

And the Azzurri are hoping their South African connection will be pivotal if it comes to a showdown for a last-eight place in their final Pool C match, against the so-far-unbeaten Ireland.

Quintin Geldenhuys is one of three Italy second rows born and brought up in South Africa, along with Carlo del Fava and Cornelius van Zyl.

Head coach Nick Mallett led South Africa to the Rugby World Cup 1999 semi-finals as well as 18-straight Test wins. Also on Italy's staff is defence coach Omar Mouneimne, who is from Cape Town and used to work for the Super Rugby side, the Stormers.

"It makes a big difference for the three locks (second rows) as I've played with the other two locks before," Geldenhuys said.

Italy mainstay

"I played with Carlo at the under-19 level for the Sharks and Cornelius in the Currie Cup for the Pumas. It is nice and familiar and we know and understand one another.

"Sometimes when I am playing with Cornelius the Afrikaans comes out, but mainly you don't realise who you are talking to, so it is automatically Italian."

Geldenhuys has been a mainstay for Italy since he made his debut for the Azzurri in June 2009. He has also played for the Barbarians in recent years and scored a try for their invitational side against South Africa at Twickenham in 2010.

He made his first Rugby World Cup appearance in Italy's second match in New Zealand, a 53-17 win over Russia. The 30-year-old missed the opener, a 32-6 loss to Australia, because of a knee injury sustained in a RWC warm-up match against Japan in August.

"Against Russia it was good to have 80 minutes without pain," he said.

"I needed those 80 minutes of game fitness. No matter how much you run or go to the gym, it is not like match fitness."

Full attention

With Geldenhuys back in the side, Mallett will hope his involvement continues Italy's improvement in the lineout after a poor start against Australia.

Next up for Italy are the USA at Trafalgar Park on 27 September, and they are giving that their full attention before the Pool C finale on 2 October, in which Geldenhuys and his fellow second rows will come up against Ireland's much-vaunted duo of Paul O'Connell and Donncha O'Callaghan.

"If you look at the match (the USA in their loss to Australia on Friday), they have a really, really physical pack of forwards and we have to match that physicality," Geldenhuys said.

"After our loss to Australia we said we would take the tournament match by match. We didn't want to think about the match with Ireland before playing Russia and the United States.

"We're now done with analysing the match with Russia and are focusing on the USA."