Italy captain Sergio Parisse could not hide his delight on Tuesday at the prospect of returning to his old club, Treviso, in the European Rugby Champions Cup on Saturday.
The 32-year-old, who is also the Stade Francais captain, is to take the French Top 14 champions to the north of Italy for their second Pool 4 match.
The Argentine-born Italy legend cannot wait to lineup again in the stadium he graced for two seasons before he caught the attention of the Parisian giants in 2005.
Photo: Reuters
“It is my old club. I know a lot of their players, who I play with regularly for Italy,” Parisse said. “Since I left Treviso, it is the first time I am going to go back to play against my old team.”
“It is going to be good to see friends in a town in which I spent my youth and where I enjoyed a lot of fantastic moments. It is going to be great. I know they are a team that, technically, are definitely not at our level, but which, in terms of spirit and commitment, will be present. They will not give an inch,” he added.
Treviso are traditionally the competition’s whipping boys, having won just five matches over the past 10 years in the tournament, but Stade Francais come into this match struggling in their domestic league.
They sit fourth from bottom of the Top 14, with just four wins from 10 matches, and were beaten 24-21 at home by Bordeaux-Begles on Saturday. They also lost their only European game so far 33-20 away at Leicester.
“I am not annoyed, but I cannot be satisfied with the results,” Parisse said. “We are in a difficult situation in the Top 14 and we had a difficult start to the season in the Champions Cup.”
“Obviously there is frustration. We know that we are not playing our best at the moment, but I always try to take responsibility, to question myself personally before demanding anything of others,” he added.
“Anyone who knows me, knows that I am always positive. Our aims this season remain the same: making the top six in the Top 14 and getting out of this pool in the Champions Cup,” he said.
Stade Francais are seeking to launch their European campaign with back-to-back wins over the Italian outfit these next two weekends before a home encounter with Irish heavyweights Munster next month, which is to provide a certain indication as to their chances of advancing from the group.
New Taipei Kings guard Jeremy Lin on Friday was named the Taiwan Professional Basketball League’s (TPBL) Player of the Month, the first domestic player to win the award, while the Hsinchu Toplus Lioneers are to welcome their third head coach in less than a year. Lin averaged 22 points, 5.4 rebounds and 6.6 assists over five games in October and last month, helping the Kings to second in the standings with a 4-2 record as of Friday. The Kings last night defeated the Lioneers 96-78 to move level with the top-of-the-table Formosa Dreamers (5-2), while in the night game, the New Taipei
TO NO AVAIL: The Denver Nuggets’ Serbian center Nikola Jokic surpassed his 53-point performance in the 2023 Western Conference semi-finals against Phoenix The Washington Wizards withstood a 56-point explosion from Denver star Nikola Jokic to beat the Nuggets 122-113 on Saturday and snap their 16-game NBA losing streak. Jokic, who won his third NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) award last season, posted a career scoring high — surpassing a 53-point performance in game four of the 2023 Western Conference semi-finals against Phoenix and a 50-point regular-season best against Sacramento in 2021. The Serbian big man added 16 rebounds and eight assists, but it was all to no avail as Washington, buoyed by 39 points from Jordan Poole, won for the first time
Taiwan on Wednesday finished with 15 medals at the World Taekwondo Poomsae Championships in Hong Kong, taking home four gold, five silver and six bronze medals across the age group divisions. Taiwan ranked third on the medal table after South Korea with 17 golds and the US with eight golds at the five-day competition. “Your athletes have proven themselves as the best in the world,” World Taekwondo president Choue Chung-won said at the closing ceremony of the martial art contest that was attended by a record 1,727 athletes from around the world. On the first day of the competition at the Hong Kong
Taiwan’s Lin Cheng-jing won a bronze medal in the clean and jerk in the women’s under-49 kg division at the 2024 IWF World Weightlifting Championships in Bahrain on Saturday. Lin won her first medal at a World Weightlifting Championships for lifting 107kg in the clean and jerk in her weight class, 2kg more than Rosegie Ramos of the Philippines. However, Ramos won bronze for the combined lift after topping Lin by 5kg in the snatch. Ri Song-gum of North Korea won gold in the division’s combined lift with a total of 213kg, while Xiang Linxiang of China took silver with
RSS