Italy will improve massively by Thursday, says Conor O'Shea
Sunday 22 September 2019 13:52, UK
Italy coach Conor O'Shea believes that his side will "improve massively" by the time they take on Canada on Thursday.
The Azzurri's head coach highlighted this after admitting that their performance against Namibia, which produced a 47-22 victory, didn't wholly please him.
"We'll have to move on from that pretty quickly. It wasn't very pretty," O'Shea said post-match.
"There were too many errors in it and it was difficult conditions at times in the second half, which doesn't excuse it.
"We're disappointed with the way we played. We have a job to do in these first two games and you know that's not the true version of us, but we'll improve massively by the time we come to Thursday."
Italy face Canada next before they encounter two heavyweights in South Africa and New Zealand.
"It's a quick turnaround [to Canada] and you make lots of changes when you have the game in the bag that sometimes you shouldn't, but you lose the continuity you might have started to build up," the head coach added.
"We just didn't get the pace into the game that we wanted. It was difficult out there and credit to Namibia anyway, but we'll take five points and we'll move on quickly."
Namibia's coach Phil Davies was delighted with his side's performance as they ran in three tries in defeat.
"I'm very proud of the players, the way we adapted to the speed of the game, some of the tries we scored and some of the resolute defence," Davies commented about the side who are searching for a first-ever World Cup victory.
"You know I was really happy, but credit to Italy, you know, they put a bit of pressure on and scored at crucial times and they deserve the win."
