The Federazione Italiana Rugby League has announced that the Italy A side will conduct a short tour to England to finalise the national squad which will participate in the qualifications for the 2013 Rugby League World Cup. Under the leadership of Paul Broadbent, the Italian players will play two games, the first against the University of Loughbourgh on Friday 16th September and against the prestigious selection of the Royal Air Force on Saturday 17th September. These two matches will be the last warm up games before embarking on the World Cup qualification matches in October.
Kelly Rolleston, assistant coach, said that “it is a great chance for the local Italian domestic players and for them its their last chance to grab a national jersey and participate in the World Cup qualification. FIRL is proud to have organised a tour to the cradle of European Rugby League, and they expect to a see a huge performance from their players, with many of the players playing in their first international test match.
“We are expecting a big performance, especially from the new faces in the side, especially from Carra, Rossi, Cenerini, Simioni, Reffo, Monteagudo, Borlin, Pavoni, Tiquet, and from veterans Calegari,Sands, Barzan, Ferrazzano, Lerna, MArcinzack and Franchi.”
(Pictured: Paul Braodbent puts Itally A players through their paces in north west Italy.)
ITALY A
Fred Delhoum (Cavaillon), Edoardo Paluello, Mauro Pettenello, Nicola Reffo, Matthew Sands, Giacomo Simioni (Grifons PD), Christophe Calegari (Lezignan), Giovanni Neri (Parma RL), Alberto Barzan, Juan Pablo Carra, Luca Cenerini, Valentino Cerri, Fabrizio Ciaurro, Thomas Covati, Giovanni Franchi, Octavian Ilinca, Santiago Monteagudo, Romain Pavoni, Matteo Rossi (XIII Del Ducato), Frederic Tiquet, Jean Christoph Borlin (St Gaudens), Cedric Prizzon (Villefranche), Jonathon Marcinzack, Marco Ferrazzano, Jason Dubas-Fisher, Eduardo Lerna (unattached)