Italian Super 10
L’Aquila Rugby is one of the teams that are going to play in the Italian Super 10 in the upcoming 2010-11 season. Differently to other Super 10 sides, L’Aquila Rugby is now finds itself in a very bad situation due to a number of factors.
The most important is the earthquake of one year ago (which killed around 300 people). The tragedy meant a lot for the city and of course most of the region’s finances were used to rebuild the cities hit by the earthquake, rather than being spent for the sports.
L’Aquila Rugby found themselves short of sponsors when their top backers, the Ferla firm, decided to withdraw their financial support.
As a result most of the team decided not to get back for another season with the team as their salary would be considerably lower. The players who recently left the team include Rebecchini, Fraser, Llanos, Purdy,Myring, Leonardi, Pietrosanti, Angeloni and Pallotta. Other players, like prop Dario Subrizi, are training to learn new roles and further help the team in these tough times.
The start of the preparation for the 2010-11 season, originally planned for the first half of July, is now set for July 26th.
It’s always sad when a team with good history is facing financial difficulties in the modern world.
L’Aquila Rugby, founded in the 1936, won a total of five Italian titles, the first of them in 1967, then 1969, 1981, 1982 and 1994. Even if the glory days are history now, L’Aquila is one of the most important rugby centers in Italy as they developed a number of good players and their junior teams are usually very good, even if in the last few years the team used less homegrown players than usual.
The most important players of their history are most likely the three stars which contributed most to the two titles of the 80s, team’s legend Massimo Mascioletti, who used to captain the Italian national team, wing Serafino Ghizzoni and full back Luigi Troiani. Mascioletti then won the title with L’Aquila Rugby also as head coach, in the 1993-94 season.
In the last decade L’Aquila didn’t manage to repeat its successes, in spite of having hired one of the best coaches of the world, French Jacque Fouroux, who didn’t even finish the 2004-05 season.
As said, the glory days are now history, and it seems hard that in the forthcoming season L’Aquila can repeat the old successes, but if they keep on investing on their youth like during the old days they have all the chances to rebound back from the terrible earthquake situation.
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Italy’s premier domestic competition moves into its closing stages this weekend, with the tournament as close as it has ever been, with five teams still in with a chance of winning the title, and breaking Benetton Treviso’s strangle hold on the championship.
