South Africa and Italy are out to regain lost pride at the rugby World Cup. They have different ways of going about it.
The South Africans, winners in 1995, but apparently now in decline, are out to repair a battered image and throw the World Cup odds upside down by beating England.
Six Nations strugglers every season, the Italians, by contrast, are convinced they won't beat powerhouse New Zealand. They look set to throw some of their backup players into their opening game against the All Blacks at Melbourne in the hope their stars will return to win less difficult matches against Tonga, Canada and Wales.
The Springboks arrived on Sunday five days before the 20-nation championship kicks off with Australia-Argentina in Sydney on Friday.
The team has slumped a long way down since its memorable 1995 World Cup triumph on home turf. Its last game against England was a 53-3 crushing at Twickenham 11 months ago when lock forward Jannes Labuschagne was sent off for crashing into Jonny Wilkinson with a late tackle that flattened the England fly half.
The South Africans also lost 30-10 to France and 21-6 to Scotland although their form improved during the Tri-Nations.
But they still have an ugly way of playing the game and, in the Tri-Nations, the Australians accused some of their players of eye gouging and biting.
Springboks skipper Corne Krige said the physical game was one of South Africa's strengths.
"There's no way we're going to change the way we play," Krige said on Sunday. "We always want to play it physical but we always want to keep it within the law and we've been working very hard on our discipline. If any player steps out of line he will be dealt with."
A racism row has also hit the South Africans, with one player, who is white, refusing to share a room with a black teammate during a pre-World Cup camp.
Although neither player is part of the World Cup squad the issue hasn't gone away with Springboks media manager Mark Keohane quitting and inflaming the situation by saying he couldn't work in an environment where racism and prejudice were excused and covered up.
South African coach Rudolf Straeuli said he was leading a "very unified team" at the World Cup and denied the racism allegation had been shelved. The issue would be dealt with, he said.
"It's issues that happen in all countries. It happened in South Africa, we deal with it," he said. "We move forward and it makes us a better team, a better country and we're proud."
South Africa will be confident of beating Uruguay, Georgia and Samoa. If it beats England too, that will mean that the English, who are strong contenders for the title, would probably have to meet co-favorite New Zealand in the quarterfinal. With one of them dropping out so early, it would leave the competition wide open. If they can go within 20 points of New Zealand, John Kirwan's Italians will be pleased with their performance. Victories over the other three teams in the group will mean a place in the quarterfinal and that would be a major achievement.
But Italy has to play all four group games in a 14-day period while others have up to 23 days with time between matches to recover. With that in mind, coach Kirwan has decided to use all 30 players in the first two games.
"Our draw's not fantastic but we'll put that to the back of our minds," Kirwan said on Channel Seven's Rugby Zone.
"What we've decided to do is play everyone in the first two games.
"In these big tournaments some things are unavoidable, with TV rights and so forth.
"It was disappointing but what we've done since then is say `OK, this is our draw and we're going to train accordingly.'
"We've had a big summer in Italy training for these four games in 14 days.
"We're not going to use it as an excuse -- we're just going to take it as it comes."
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