Hard Cheese? - Parma Preview

By BrianC
October 27 2005

Our first match against Italian opposition for six years takes place next Sunday as Overmach Parma pay their first ever visit to the Madejski.

At this stage I must admit that I have struggled to put any sort of preview together. The normal method of Google searches has been complicated by the fact that Parma, small town though it is, has two teams in the Italian league. From what I can see, the Parma team that has played in the ECC in the last couple of years is Gran Parma rather than the one we face on Sunday. Add to that the fact that their official website is so slow as to be pretty well un-navigable even if I did speak Italian, which I don't, and you'll get some idea of the difficulty I have faced.

The best version of a squad list I have been able to find is here. It shows that they have precious few Italians actually playing for them although, curiously enough most of the names look Italian. Their overseas contingent mostly comprises South Africans, Canadians and Argentinians. With seven other nationalities making up the squad one gets to feel that the dressing room is more cosmopolitan than any seen on these shores.

Overmach Parma currently sit 4th in the Italian League and claimed the scalp of Calvisano a fortnight ago. Their first ECC game of this season was against Agen, here they went down 23 - 50 at home. We acquitted ourselves pretty well last week in Pau with a 13 - 20 victory. Whilst it is still early days the battle for supremacy in our group seems to be between ourselves and Agen.

We must be expected to win this match comfortably. It cannot however be taken for granted. A good win in this game and we will be well set for a quarter-final spot in April.