South Africa clash with Italy in Rugby World Cup Pool B in Shizuoka on Friday and the Springboks start as firm favourites in a game which already looks like a virtual eliminator.
South Africa v Italy, Friday 4th October, Shizuoka , KO 11:45 (South African time)
Weather Forecast – Shizuoka
Referee: Wayne Barnes
Assistant referees: Romain Poite, Alexandre Ruiz
TMO: Rown Kitt
South Africa
After losing their opening match of the tournament 32-13 to the All Blacks the Springboks put Namibia away 57-3 at the weekend. The changes were rung for the Namibia match and the Boks, who led 31-3 at half time, ran in a total of 9 tries with the margin of victory coming in just shy of the pre-match handicap which had been set at 58.5 points. Mbongeni Mbonambi and Makazole Mapimpi scored 2 tries a piece and it was never really a contest.
With no losing bonus point from the All Blacks game South Africa now have 5 log points against their name, 5 shy of their opponents here. After this South Africa's final match in this pool comes against Canada in Kobe on Tuesday of next week. That should be a straight forward assignment so victory in this game ought to be enough to reach the knockout rounds, almost certainly as Pool B runners up (to New Zealand). If that does prove to be the case South Africa would take on the winners of Pool A in the quarter finals, which right now looks likely to be Ireland or host nation Japan. This will be the Boks first visit to Shizuoka, the scene of Japan's shock win over Ireland last weekend.
In terms of the outright betting South Africa are trading in the region of 7/2 to 4/1 to win the tournament and around 16/10 to reach the final.
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Italy
Right now the pool standings look good for Italy who have a full house of 10 log points but their 2 bonus point wins came against the minnows of Namibia (47-22) and Canada (48-7). Italy were 30 point favourites to beat Namibia and 20 point favourites for the clash with Canada and how much you read into their chances of reaching the quarter finals for the first time based on those results is open to debate.
If Italy are to reach the knockout rounds they are almost certainly tasked with either turning the Boks over in this game or the All Blacks in their final pool match on 12th October and they remain rank outsiders at odds of up to 1000/1 to win the tournament.
In RWC 2015 Italy beat pool outsiders Canada and Romania and lost to the tier 1 nations Ireland (16-9) and France (32-10). More recent form against tier 1 sides came in the this years 6 Nations where Italy lost all 5 of their matches and RWC warm up results included defeats in Ireland (29-10), France (47-19) and England (37-0).
Line Ups
South Africa: 15 Willie le Roux, 14 Cheslin Kolbe, 13 Lukhanyo Am, 12 Damian de Allende, 11 Makazole Mapimpi, 10 Handre Pollard, 9 Faf de Klerk, 8 Duane Vermeulen, 7 Pieter-Steph du Toit, 6 Siya Kolisi (c), 5 Lood de Jager, 4 Eben Etzebeth, 3 Frans Malherbe, 2 Mbongeni Mbonambi, 1 Tendai Mtawarira
Replacements: 16 Malcolm Marx, 17 Steven Kitshoff, 18 Vincent Koch, 19 RG Snyman, 20 Franco Mostert, 21 Francois Louw, 22 Herschel Jantjies, 23 Frans Steyn
Italy: 15 Matteo Minozzi, 14 Tommaso Benvenuti, 13 Luca Morisi, 12 Jayden Hayward, 11 Michele Campagnaro, 10 Tommaso Allan, 9 Tito Tebaldi, 8 Sergio Parisse (c), 7 Jake Polledri, 6 Braam Steyn, 5 Dean Budd, 4 David Sisi, 3 Simone Ferrari, 2 Luca Bigi, 1 Andrea Lovotti
Replacements: 16 Federico Zani, 17 Nicola Quaglio, 18 Marco Riccioni, 19 Alessandro Zanni, 20 Federico Ruzza, 21 Sebastian Negri, 22 Callum Braley, 23 Carlo Canna
Head to Head
The teams have met 14 times with the Boks winning 13 to Italy's 1 with South Africa averaging 47 points per game to Italy's 12.
The most recent meeting came in Padua in November 2017 and South Africa won 35-6.
Italy's only win against the Boks came in November 2016 when they came out on top 20-18 in Florence.
The will be the first time the teams have met in the RWC
Betting – Handicap
South Africa -28.5 points at 9/10
Italy +28.5 points at 9/10
Quotes are an average of what was on offer from a selection of bookmakers at the time of writing and are subject to change.
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Betting Angle
When the betting came out there was (+29.5) Italy and I am kicking myself for not moving quicker as it was pretty obvious that line would move. Yes, the Springboks have a good record against Italy and the Italians certainly haven't been in great form leading up to the World Cup, but there is no doubt that they have targeted this match and they have the forwards that can give South Africa problems.
South Africa should win this and they may well end up winning comfortably, but I am keen to get the (+27.5) currently on offer at GGGaming before that to disappears as I see the line is 25.5 at most bookmakers.
BET: 5 Units Italy (+27.5) at 8/10 at GGGaming.bet
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