Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

and

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

have played each other in full tests at

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

a total of nineteen matches, with the first eighteen won by Australia. Italy achieved their first victory in the fixture in the 2022 Autumn Internationals, some 39 years after the first match between the teams.http://www.rugbydata.com/australia/italy Australia have met Italy once in

Rugby World Cup The Rugby World Cup is a men's rugby union tournament contested every four years between the top international teams. The tournament is administered by World Rugby, the sport's international governing body. The winners are awarded the Webb E ...

play, losing 32-6 in

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

in the

2011 Rugby World Cup The 2011 Rugby World Cup was the seventh Rugby World Cup, a quadrennial international rugby union competition inaugurated in 1987. The International Rugby Board (IRB) selected New Zealand as the host country in preference to Japan and South Af ...

. All other matches were Test Matches. In addition, Australia beat Italy twice in non-Test matches prior to 1983, in games in which Italy gave caps, but Australia, appearing as ''Australia XV'', did not.

History

Australia first played Italy on their way home from European tours in the 1970s, though they were not given full international status. The first encounter was in 1973 when Australia ran up 59 points to 21, but the second was the closest ever, with Italy losing by a single point 16-17. Officially the first test between the two countries was in 1983, following an Italian tour of Australia in 1981 in which the visitors acquitted themselves well against secondary opposition. They toured again in 1986 and played their first test match away from home. Two years later the Italians were soundly beaten at the end of the 1988 Wallabies tour, but their next tour of Australia in 1994 saw a big improvement with all state matches won and an unlucky defeat in the Brisbane test match. Since then results have generally been convincing wins to Australia, but the one in 2012 was close with Italy unlucky to lose by 3 points. In November 2022 Italy won their first game against Australia 28-27 as part of the 2022 Autumn International.

World Cup History

In 2011 they met for the first time in a World Cup match at the group stage in Auckland with Australia starting their campaign towards the Semi-finals with a 32–6 win.

Summary

Note: Summary below reflects test results by both teams.

Overall

Records

Note: Date shown in brackets indicates when the record was or last set.

Results

XV Results

Below is a list of matches that Italy has awarded matches test match status by virtue of awarding caps, but Australia did not award caps.

List of series

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Australia and Italy Australia national rugby union team matches Italy national rugby union team matches