With Scotland up next for Italy at Murrayfield, coach Jacques Brunel said it will soon be time to keep the emotions in check.
Brunel oversaw only Italy's second victory over Les Bleus in the Six Nations, after the hosts held on for a deserved 23-18 win on Sunday.
The former Perpignan coach was made to sweat as France threatened to snatch victory after replacement fly-half Kris Burton's drop-goal gave Italy a five-point lead with 12 minutes remaining.
Italy have never won more than two matches in the tournament and he feels the time has come when the Azzurri must move up to the next level.
"The team has made a lot of progress in recent years and today we gave a good image of our rugby, and showed we can play with character," he said.
"I was in emotional turmoil the whole match. France are a great side and it's never an easy game. The match could have gone either way as we saw.
"The team has really grown and today they demonstrated their strength. It's the right time to manage Italy.
"We've worked a lot on our team and a lot on our game and I liked a lot of what I seen today."
Scotland are next up - the Italians have a decent record against them but they have only won once at Murrayfield.
"Everyone says Scotland are not a great team at the moment but they are a hard team to play against, especially at Murrayfield, and last year they gave a lot of teams problems," said Brunel.
Comments
Lucasrg says...
Another mental test ahead against the angry Scotts. I really hope Brunell will work hard on this one....seems that is going to be even a harder test for the Azzurri at Murrayfield. after all we just won a game and it's already in the past. This is seriously the biggest game for both teams.
I really hope Barbieri and Gori will be fit for this clash. Resting Parisse at some point in the second half is pretty important for the rest of the tournament...and honestly Barbieri on his days is pretty damn good.
Posted 15:05 04th February 2013
carpelone says...
I was at the stadium yesterday and I saw the match again on the TV.
There is still room for improvement. Botes' decisions, especially one in the first half (an absurd kick direct to touch with no French deep cover), defense in the 10 and 13 outside channels, line-outs and scrum stability. In addition, it seems that 20-25 points are the maximum attacking potential for Italy, which is not sufficient to be consistently a threat for the top 6 Nations.
I am really curious to see Italy against Scotland, they last time they met in Edinboro was after the other Italy's win over France and they were awful.
Posted 14:54 04th February 2013
paolocar88 says...
wait wait.. one match doesn't make italy a top team! we have still a long way ahead to prove we can be a top team.. consistency has always been our biggest problem (especially consistency in the same match, 50 min good play and then 30 min blackout). now consistency in one match is almost there (but in the last 10 mins i feared it could vanish). consistency between multiple matches will be there too? i hope that but if it wont be against scotland i won't be surprised. we did a first big step forward. the second one maybe needs more time! go italy!
Posted 11:58 04th February 2013
TVaddict says...
Well Scotland are there for the taking, and then they have Wales at home. So really, Italy should be looking for at least two wins but more positively three. Heck, they even have Ireland in Italy and those matches have been close in recent years, so they could be looking at four wins. It will be great for the competition to have a strong Italy.
Posted 00:53 04th February 2013