Underdog

10. FIGHT OR FLIGHT

Saturday 6th February 2021

9:15am

5 hours until kick off at the Stadio Olympico

Isabella Eira Jones PoV:

The day had finally arrived.

Italy vs France, first game of the 2021 Six Nations tournament.

What made this weekend even better was the fact my brother was playing the following day, allowing me to watch both matches instead of catching bits and pieces of the two.

Franco had knocked on my door at nine and invited me down for a pre-match briefing with the coaching staff and team captain, Luca Bigi, who was currently sat in the seat next to me. We were all handed a clipboard containing the teams playing today, coaching plans, things to watch out for from both sides and what the procedure was going to be with making substitutions. Bigi and I took our time going through their final squad, making sure we knew roughly who and what to keep an eye out for, it was a strong team after all.

Italy: 15-Jacopo Trulla; 14-Luca Sperandio, 13-Marco Zanon, 12-Juan Ignacio Brex, 11-Montanna Ioane; 10-Paolo Garbisi, 9-Stephen Varney; 1-Cherif Traore, 2-Luca Bigi (capt), 3-Marco Riccioni; 4-Marco Lazzaroni, 5-David Sisi; 6-Sebastian Negri, 7-Johan Meyer, 8-Michele Lamaro

Replacements: 16-Gianmarco Lucchesi, 17-Danilo Fischetti, 18-Giosue Zilocchi, 19-Niccolo Cannone, 20-Federico Ruzza, 21-Maxime Mbanda, 22-Guglielmo Palazzani, 23-Carlo Canna

France: 15-Brice Dulin; 14-Teddy Thomas, 13-Arthur Vincent, 12-Gael Fickou, 11-Gabin Villiere; 10-Matthieu Jalibert, 9-Antoine Dupont; 1-Cyril Baille, 2-Julien Marchand, 3-Mohamed Haouas, 4-Bernard Le Roux; 5-Paul Willemse, 6-Dylan Cretin; 7-Charles Ollivon (capt), 8-Gregory Alldritt

Replacements: 16-Pierre Bourgarit, 17-Jean-Baptiste Gros, 18-Dorian Aldeghiri, 19-Romain Taofifenua, 20-Anthony Jeronch, 21-Baptiste Serin, 22-Louis Carbonel, 23-Damian Penaud

11:30 am

2 hours 45 minutes until kick off

Arriving at the stadium, the team made their way off the coach following myself and Luca. My hand was gripping his, holding it like my life depended on it and quite honestly with the events going on today, it certainly felt that way.

Coaching had to be one of the worst jobs when it came to game day. I knew we'd prepared this team well and that they had the potential to be the best Italian team in history, but there was nothing we could do once they were out there on the pitch other than shout instructions to Bigi to communicate with the team.

"You know I believe in you guys right?" I asked as we made it to the changing rooms and bags were thrown around until they reached the right player. A few of the younger guys were taking their time admiring the kit hanging up in front of them, seeing their name on the back of the blue shirt was a moment they'd never forget. I got a few nods in response but they stayed relatively quiet which was unlike them.

"I'm not messing around guys, the past couple of months have been the most amazing months of my life. Your attitude back then was so negative but now I'm looking at a unit with a positive outlook on life who have just as good of a chance of winning today as France do!" I continued to talk as they began slipping on their kit, taking pride in themselves as they pulled the blue shirts over their head. "No matter what happens out there today, you WILL give 110%, you WILL work as a team, and you WILL come off that pitch feeling proud of yourselves. You have all worked too hard for you to give any less than that!" The mood began to shift, and I could feel the energy and excitement building.