Pride is all that’s left to play for when Italy take on Romania in the last match of the 2015 Rugby World Cup for both sides. Join The Roar from 12:30am AEDT for live scores from the game.
Both sides have recorded just a single win from three pools games so far, both of them with wins over Canada, who Italy defeated 23-18 and Romania defeated 17-15.
They’ve fallen behind the likes of France and Ireland who are both locked into the quarter-finals and will do battle after this match to determine the winner of Pool D.
However there is some reward on the line for the side that wins this match, whichever does is bound to finish third in Pool D and in doing so will automatically qualify for the 2019 Rugby World Cup.
The losers will finish fourth and will need to take the hard route to 2019, when the Rugby World Cup will be hosted in Japan.
Italy are headed into the match as comfortable favourites, at $1.14 with betting agencies, but something we have learned in this tournament is that an upset is always possible.
It’ll be a difficult ask for Romania though, as they come into the match with just a four-day turnaround from their comeback win against Canada.
Italy will be missing skipper Sergio Parisse with Quintin Geldunhuys taking over as captain in his absence and Alessandro Zanni coming into the team for him.
Tommaso Benvenuti also replaces an injured Gonzalo Garcia in what will be Italy’s youngest world cup starting line-up since 2007.
Romania too are missing their captain, Mihai Macovei, suspended for a dangerous tackle. Daniel Carpo replaces him, Valentin Ursache will captain the side.
Romania are also missing Florin Surugiu, replaced by Valentin Calafeteanu.
Italy were victorious the last time these two sides met, though that goes back eight years to a 24-18 victory in Marseille.
Prediction: Italy should win this one, and gain automatic qualification for the 2019 Rugby World Cup.
Join The Roar from 12:30am AEDT for live scores from the game, and leave a comment below if you are following the match.
DaniE
Roar Guru
Good second half by Romania, I really hope they get to play more games against Top 10 nations - would help them tremendously.