Franco Smith

Former All Black Kieran Crowley has replaced Franco Smith as Italy's coach. Smith had been in the role since 2019 and will now become Italian rugby's head of high performance. Former Canada coach Crowley - who has spent the past five seasons at Italian club Benetton - was part of New Zealand's 1987 World Cup-winning squad.

There will be no devious box of tricks in Franco Smith’s luggage as the Italian coach packs his bags for London and a Twickenham assignment that yielded the ‘no ruck’ furore in 2017. Italy confounded England four years ago with their innovative strategy prompting Eddie Jones to comment "that’s not rugby… if you paid for your ticket, ask for your money back." Would that there might be any fans at all in the stadium this time around but the current Azzurri head coach is all too aware that the watching world will want to see guts and fortitude as a bare minimum as Italy try to arrest a morale-shattering sequence of 28 consecutive losses in the Guinness Six Nations Championship, a wretched run that dates back to 2015.