RWC 'anything' can happen

Florence - New Zealand legend Jonah Lomu believes next year's Rugby World Cup in his homeland could be the closest yet.

Lomu was in Florence to publicise his rugby camps and took time out from entertaining budding young rugby players to look ahead to next year's global showpiece.

And despite being a veteran of 185 points in 63 matches for the All Blacks, he wasn't prepared to tip them for glory, even on home soil.

"Honestly this World Cup's probably the most open that there can be, you just have to look at the teams that got knocked over at the weekend," he said.

"The All Blacks got knocked over by Australia and then you look at England who knocked over Australia itself, so it's anybody's ball game."

Although European teams rarely gain much success in the southern hemisphere, Lomu pointed to England's World Cup victory in 2003 as proof that rugby as a sport is not cut and dried.

"Anything can happen, no-one expected the English team to go down there and do what they did in 2003 so anything can happen, the World Cup's a different kettle of fish," he said.

"Too many people look at one-off Test matches and Tri-Nations and so forth, tournament rugby is completely different to playing those Test matches.

"It goes week in, week out and when you go to the quarter-finals it's: may the best team win."

And Lomu insists that this year's November internationals have not made the picture any clearer.

"All the teams have impressed me. When they're on fire, they're on fire and when they're not, they get punished," he added.

"That shows how close games are and what a big part of the game is mental, in terms of mental toughness and turning up on the day."

As for Italy, Lomu believes they need to resist the temptation to model their game on the teams ahead of them in the world rankings and simply find their own identity.

"They just need to find themselves, what makes Italian rugby Italian rugby and not try to emulate and copy any other team," he said.

"They need to find themselves, they have all the passion and the drive, it's being able to harness it and put it into good use and the right direction.

"You find a lot of teams have passion but completely forget about playing the game and by the time they're into their game, it's too late.

"A lot of people think about the physicality and the speed but they forget about the mental side of the game as well."