Italy 31 Portugal 5

PARIS: Italy coach Pierre Berbizier insisted he was very happy with his side's unimpressive 31-5 win over a largely amateur Portugal side at the Parc des Princes on Wednesday night.

Italy, who were up by only 16-5 at half-time, eventually pulled away in the closing stages after tries from flanker Mauro Bergamasco and Andrea Masi, who had also scored in the fourth minute.

But Portugal denied the Azzurri a bonus point for a fourth try before Italy's clash with Scotland in St Etienne on September 29 for the second quarter-final spot behind likely group winners New Zealand.

"I am delighted with the result," said Berbizier, despite the fact Italy had thrashed Portugal 83-0 last October, before beating Scotland and Wales in the Six Nations.

In fact, it was hard to believe Italy could make as many passing and handling errors as they did on Wednesday.

"We are having problems both mentally and physically," Berbizier admitted. "We aided the Portuguese defence. We didn't know how to impose our pressure.

"We lost a great deal of ball and this allowed the Portuguese to stay so involved in the game."

However, captain Marco Bortolami, who was sin-binned in the eighth minute, warned Italy's critics to back off.

"We are the first to admit we need to improve," he said. "The team, apart from the first match [against the All Blacks], had never lacked the will to do well.

"We want to put a stop to all this [negative talk]. It's so far from reality. We've got 10 days until the Scotland match. We're below our Six Nations standard but we're addressing that."

Bortolami added that he was wrongly sent off. "A Portuguese player took me by the head, it was a foul but the referee saw it differently. The touch judge said I punched the Portuguese player. This didn't happen."

Portugal coach Tomaz Morais said his side had again surprised the rugby world, with lock David Penalva scoring the try of the match.

"We're very happy with the rugby we played," he said.

"For us, this result is something of a victory because Italy didn't score four tries.

"We're not sad, we are still taking great steps forward and surprising people. This is the first time this team has played in front of 45,000 people. Now we must learn and make better tactical decisions against Romania."

AFP