{"id":453839,"date":"2026-02-02T15:48:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T15:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/453839\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T15:48:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T15:48:11","slug":"italy-boss-gonzalo-quesada-expects-scotland-to-be-sore-losers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/453839\/","title":{"rendered":"Italy boss Gonzalo Quesada expects Scotland to be sore losers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Gonzalo Quesada has braced his Italy<\/a> side for a laser-focused Scotland<\/a> to pitch up in Rome for Saturday\u2019s Guinness Six Nations<\/a> opener.<\/p>\n

The Azzurri head coach admitted a Stadio Olimpico showdown with the wounded Scots would not have been his preferred choice to kick off the championship.<\/p>\n

Gregor Townsend\u2019s side lost on their previous visit to the Eternal City two years ago, while they have also come under fire after a disappointing autumn campaign in which they lost their two showpiece November Tests at home to New Zealand<\/a> and Argentina<\/a> despite being in strong positions in both.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s the ideal game because Scotland lost a couple of games they shouldn\u2019t lose,\u201d said Quesada ahead of his third Six Nations in charge of Italy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey played amazing rugby against the All Blacks<\/a> and Argentina but they finish losing. And I think that will increase the level of focus they\u2019re going to have.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey also lost two years ago in Italy, so it\u2019s a must-win in Rome. So I think we\u2019re going to have a really tough, determined Scottish team coming to Rome.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, because we don\u2019t have a lot of time with the Italian team together, I like when we start away, because that takes away a bit of pressure.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlaying away is a little bit less pressure, and it would give us an extra week preparing for the first game at home. It\u2019s not going to be a lot of training sessions before playing Scotland, but it is what it is, and we\u2019re going to be ready.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Head-to-Head <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Last 5 Meetings<\/p>\n

Average Points scored<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Italy have had some eye-catching results under Quesada, including a draw in France<\/a> in 2024 plus victories over Scotland, Wales<\/a> and Australia, but the Argentine acknowledged it remains difficult for them to compete consistently over the course of a campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been improving, but not with a total consistency, so I think the main goal is to find that consistency of being able to really compete at a good level against the five rivals we\u2019re going to have, even if they are all a bit in front of us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that we cannot have our only goal as winning because we are a bit behind some of the teams. It\u2019s going to be tough if we only think about results as a goal.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we want to defend with a lot of Latin passion and play some exciting attacking rugby that will make our fans proud of us. That\u2019s what we\u2019re looking for.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to win more, of course. But we know the path is to be more consistent.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gonzalo Quesada has braced his Italy side for a laser-focused Scotland to pitch up in Rome for Saturday\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-453839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}