Winner & Losers: Italy vs Canada

Winner & Losers: Italy vs Canada

Italian made to two from two as they dismantled Canada 48-7 at the Fukuoka Hakatanomori Stadium on Thursday.  Here are our winners and losers of the match, which saw Italy out score their South American opponents six tires to one. 



Winner DTH v/d Merwe

Might have been on the losing side tonight but really put in a classy performance on attack. The South African born winger gained 106 meters on his own today, beat five defenders and produced three clean breaks. If there is an area Van Der Merwe can improve on it’s his tackling as he only made 3 out 7 tackles. 


Winner: Braam Steyn 

The 27-year-old was an absolute terror for 62 minutes, he managed to gain 58 metres on attack and beat five defenders while going forward. Steyn, who is also South African born, made 13 carries in the game and the one lead to the opening try. 


 

 

 

Loser: Matt Heaton

 

Matt Heaton came onto the field early in the first half as blood replacement and sadly for him messed up Canada’s opportunity to score a first half try. His fortune sadly turned even worse as he was shown a yellow card for collapsing a maul on his own try line, which ended up being awarded a penalty try. 

 

 

 

 

Winner: Jake Polledri

 

It was truly a Man of the Match performance by Polledri, who played a full 80 minutes. On attack, he made 105 metres, carried the ball 15 times and also beat 14 defenders. His clean breaks were pretty impressive today, and he also managed 4 quality offloads and one registering as a try assist. 

 

 

 

 

Loser: Canada 

 

We think the entire Canadian squad will be very disappointed with that performance, they were sloppy with the ball in hand and sadly just didn't ask the Italians many questions. They missed 32 tackles in the match and only had a lineout success rate of 71%. 

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