ITALY STUNNED AUSTRALIA with a historic 28-27 win in the Autumn Nations Series on Saturday, their first ever win over the Wallabies.
Ange Capuozzo dotted down twice and Pierre Bruno scored the Azzurri’s other try on a remarkable day for Kieran Crowley’s side in Florence, with Tommaso Allan and Edoardo Padovani kicking the remaining 13 points between them.
Italy have now won five of their last six Test matches and although Australia changed almost the entire team which lost narrowly to France last weekend, Saturday’s victory at the Stadio Artemio Franchi is still a major triumph.
They did it after incredible last-gasp drama, Ben Donaldson’s missed conversion from Cadeyrn Neville add-time try leaving Italy with a famous win in front of an incredulous 20,000 crowd.
It was also a win obtained without Italy’s star man, Montpellier out-half Paolo Garbisi, ruled out with a hip injury the morning of the match.
Australia scored their other two tries through Tom Wright and Fraser McReight but fell to their second defeat of their three Autumn Tests so far, with a trip to Dublin to face Ireland still to come.
Italy face South Africa in Genoa in their final match of the year next weekend.
