Ex-WP U19 flyhalf Tommaso Allan is set to play his 88th Test for Italy against the Springboks on Saturday. SIMON BORCHARDT traces how the nephew of former Bok hooker John Allan came to play for the Azzurri.
On 27 October 2012, Tommy Allan, who had played for Scotland U20 earlier in the year, started at flyhalf for the Western Province U19 team that beat the Bulls in the domestic final at Kings Park.
On 9 November 2013, he came off the bench to make his Test debut for Italy against the Wallabies in Torino.
Confused? Let’s start at the beginning.
Will Allan, the brother of ex-Scotland and Springbok hooker John, was born in Scotland before moving to South Africa. He played hooker for Natal U20 and then moved to Italy, where he met his future wife, Paola, who had played scrumhalf for the national women’s side. Will would probably have represented Italy, too, had he not been sent off during a trial match before the 1999 World Cup.
The Allans were living in Vicenza, a city in the north-east of the country, when Tommy was born, and he would spend the first eight years of his life there. He started playing rugby aged seven and then opted for a year of soccer.
When the family moved to Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire, England, Allan played club rugby for the Henley Hawks as the sport wasn’t offered by his school.
His uncle John, a Glenwood old boy, also arranged for him to play rugby at the KwaZulu-Natal school during the English summer when he was 15 and 16. He then spent his final two years at an English school that did play rugby and didn’t return to Glenwood.
After a few years with the Hawks, Allan joined London Scottish and it was through the club’s contacts that he ended up playing age-group rugby for Scotland. He took part in two World Rugby U20 Championships, in 2012 in Cape Town and Stellenbosch, and 2013 in France, by which time he had joined London Wasps.
Wasps, though, didn’t offer him a contract after school and, remembering the good times he’d had in South Africa, Allan considered furthering his career at either the Sharks or Western Province. There were too many players at the Sharks Academy for his liking, so he opted for the WP Rugby Institute.
Allan played for the WP U19 team that won the domestic competition in 2012 and was expecting to stay in Cape Town.
“Province told me they would offer me a contract, so I started looking for an apartment,” he recalls. “Then three weeks later they said only one junior flyhalf would be getting one and it wasn’t me. I was very disappointed.” (That flyhalf was Tim Swiel, who ended up signing with the Sharks, having received a substantially bigger offer than Province’s.)
As Western Province were the only South African team Allan wanted to play for, he asked the Scottish Rugby Union for a contract with Edinburgh or Glasgow, and was turned down. Fortunately, though, his agent had good contacts in France, at Perpignan in particular, and got him a deal for the 2013-14 season, which was then extended by two years.
In October 2013, one of Perpignan’s coaches, Giampiero de Carli, a close friend of Italy coach Jacques Brunel, asked Allan if he would be willing to play for the Azzurri. He said yes, and then got a call from the Italy team manager Gino Troiani to say he had been picked for their squad. Later that day, Scotland coach Scott Johnson phoned Allan and said he wanted to pick him for their end-of-year Tests.
“I had always kept my options open when it came to playing Test rugby for Italy or Scotland, and I didn’t expect to have to make a choice so soon in my career,” he says. “I’d always felt Italian, so I was happy to be called up to their squad. I was surprised to get a call from Scott, considering Edinburgh or Glasgow hadn’t wanted me, but by then I had already committed to Italy.”
The following month, Allan came off the bench midway through the second half against the Wallabies to make his Test debut, and scored a late try that he clearly enjoyed.
“One of my teammates told me I shouldn’t have celebrated like that because we were losing,” he says with a laugh. “I must have still been thinking about that try because I missed the easy conversion, which I was annoyed about.”
Tommaso, as he soon became known in Italy, has since amassed 87 Test caps, while featuring at the 2015, 2019 and 2023 World Cups. The 32-year-old has scored 554 Test points for the Azzurri, including 15 tries (behind only the legendary Diego Domínguez, who scored 983).
ALLAN: Italy out to breach Boks’ rush defence
Former Bok hooker John Allan on his nephew:
“I first saw Tommy play when he had just come over to the UK from Italy. He was attending a European school that didn’t play rugby, so he played club rugby and was used at flyhalf, centre or wing.
“When he was 15, I arranged for him to come to Durban during the English summer and play for Glenwood High School. It was then that he realised how much talent there is in South Africa and that he would have to up his game if he wanted to make it in the big leagues.
‘Tommy never stood out as a natural talent, but I told him it was about hard work, being positive and being prepared to vasbyt when things got tough. The credit, though, must go to my brother Will, who has always supported Tommy and given him every opportunity to succeed.
‘Tommy was eligible to play for Italy and Scotland, and I think he made the right decision to play for Italy. From an emotional perspective, he was born and grew up in Italy and his name is actually Tommaso. His mother is Italian and played for Italy’s women’s team and his father speaks fluent Italian – in fact, he often battles with English!
“From a clinical perspective, while Tommy played for Scotland U20, Scotland didn’t show much interest in him and didn’t offer him the security of a contract. Italy did.”
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Photo: Steve Haag/Giampiero Sposito/Getty Images/Gallo Images
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