Rugby 13. A new sport with more and more fans in tow

Interview with Pierluigi Gentile, secretary of the Italian Rugby Football League and Vincenzo Elifani, owner of Sagad, sponsor of the National Rugby League 13.


Mr. Gentile, what is the rugby 13?
Rugby 13 is a sport that is part of the great family of rugby, is played with thirteen players instead of fifteen, and it is said that, globally, it is even more popular than rugby at 15.
Unfortunately, in Italy this sport was played by more than 70 years. Today is recovering thanks to the foot of some sports fans of this sport.
Unlike rugby at 15, this is a discipline much more dynamic and easier to practice. Playing with two men less in the scrum, they are much less frequent than the static phases, which sometimes make it a little "slow" games of rugby to 15.


What is the Federation IRFL (Italy Rugby Football League) Rugby 13?
The Federation IRFL of which I am proud to be the secretary is a federation which was founded four years ago with the intent to promote not only at senior level but also youth rugby to 13 in Italy.
Since 2009 we have had an exponential growth of practitioners, from 200 in the first year we went to more than 2000 of this year, all participants in our activities.
But, at this point, I would like to clarify that our Federation is not antagonistic to the movement of rugby at 15, but rather seeks to create a movement that works toward a common goal which is to try to form better quality players on a technical level, able to take advantage of the experiences of two sporting codes to improve technically and physically, for the benefit of all-round movement of the oval ball.
Precisely for this reason, and to avoid an unnecessary rivalry between the two sporting codes, our schedules never coincide with the activities of the movement to 15.


What are you driving this movement?
This remarkable and sudden growth, and in some ways unexpected, our movement has meant that even the CONI attended to us. This allowed us to make an official request for an observatory to become a Sports Discipline Associated with the CONI.
Our simple goal is to promote more and more this beautiful sport, and begin to propagandarlo, as indeed is already happening, including youth and women's categories. Moreover, no less important, is our commitment to spread the sport in society. In fact, we have already been able to successfully organize sports projects in prisons like the one carried out in the prison of Frosinone, or with children with hearing impairment (Isis Magarotto). Of course, we are ready and determined to toss the others because we strongly believe that sport is a great way to make us feel everyone equal, united and better.


Dr. Elifani, what is its relationship with rugby?
I've always been a fan of the sport. When I was very young I have also been practicing for a while, but then naively I left and I still regret this. In more recent years I have made the executive instead of some rugby teams. I was adviser to the chairman of Rugby Rugby Frascati and Castel Gandolfo. In addition, since Italy entered the "Six Nations", I always follow our national, sometimes even when playing abroad.


Why did you decide to sponsor with the logo of his company of the Italian National Rugby 13?
In the world of rugby there are values ​​such as loyalty, respect, genuineness, tenacity and solidarity that have always been of fundamental references of my way of being, therefore, Pierluigi when my friend asked me to become a sponsor of the National I did not think twice and say I'm very pleased and honored to have linked the name of my company to this movement honest and clean, as well as proud to have printed on the blue shirt.