Rome (AFP) - Kieran Crowley tried to look on the bright side after his Italy team extended their string of Six Nations defeats to 36 with Saturday's 33-22 home loss to Scotland.
Italy are guaranteed a 17th wooden spoon following their latest match without a win but three tries and some exciting attacking play suggested there might be more to come from a young side.
"There are lots of positives...The pleasing thing is that we got a bit of play in this game where we were trying to play from an attacking perspective," Crowley told reporters.
"Hopefully from a confidence point of view that takes us forward and we can look to maybe build on it next game (against Wales).
"Then after the summer and the autumn internationals we come to the Six Nations next year and we will have players who have had another year of experience, another eight or nine Test matches under their belts and we can put together a more complete performance."
Two of Italy's tries came through replacement Ange Capuozzo, the Grenoble full-back scoring a second-half brace on his debut for the Azzurri to give the match a more respectable scoreline.
"The most pleasing thing for me was that yes he scored a couple of tries but his first action was a missed tackle, the second was a ball he dropped, but he bounced back from that," Crowley continued.
"From a mental hardness perspective that was very, very promising.Sometimes a player in their first Test match can do those kind of actions early and they lose it.But he certainly bounced back.
"He has pace, which he demonstrated today and he scored two really good team tries which is what you're asking a 15 or a winger to do.He can be very pleased with his day's play."
