Massimo Cuttitta is still a presence in the world of rugby

The pylons – scrum, front line, one on the right, the other on the left, the hooker in the middle – are the foundations of a house, the infantrymen in the trenches of the Great War, reading and writing in first grade. Without it, everything collapses. They have animal nicknames (“Os”, ox, for the South African Jocobus Petrus Du Randt), or related to the size of the big heads (“Watermelon”, watermelon, for the Welsh Gethin Jenkins), or referred to the base area by height (“Bus ” for the English Jason Leonard, indeed, “Fun Bus” to recognize his humorous vein). TO Massimo Cuttitta he was given a nickname that seems to have nothing to do with his size, his strength, his might: “Mouse”. But his dedication dates back to when he was a child and on the field he moved quickly, snappy, elusive.

Saturday at 1.30pm in Murrayfield, Edinburgh, Scotland-Italy, the first of the three matches of the last day of the Six Nations 2023 (live on SkySport1 and Tv8), the Cuttitta Cup is up for grabs, the trophy that unites and divides the Highlanders and Azzurri in the memory of Massimo, 70 appearances for the Italian national team and six years in charge of the Scotland scrum. The cup was commissioned by the Scottish Federation: four and a half kilos, made of silver by the silversmiths of Hamilton & Inches jewelery in Edinburgh, it is made up of eight pieces like the players who make up the forward pack, i.e. the walnut base of the ‘East Lothian to recall the link with Scotland, the plate engraved with the Cuttitta Cup in Roman characters to recall the Italian origin, a rugby ball with the logos of the Scottish Rugby Union and the Italian rugby federation, a support fitting for the ball, the flags surrounding the trophy, the two handles as if they were the two pylons, and the inscription which reaffirms the forging of the trophy in Edinburgh. A year ago the first edition of the Cuttitta Cup was conquered by Scotland, who won 33-22 in Rome.

“Mouse” was special. Really. On the field he radiated solidity and vehemence, as if with the number 1 shirt he also wore armor, and a metalworking temper. Off the pitch he was surprisingly shy, reserved, and even modest. Friends confide that the presence of a woman was enough, without even the glimmer of a vague courtship, for Massimo to betray her sensitivity and turn red in his face. The day the Italian Classic XV superclub graduated him ad honorem calling him to one lectio magistralis, fearing the melee as a teacher of life, Massimo did not feel like getting up from his confused seat in the audience and going on stage, but contented himself with attending introductions, prolusions, explanations, speeches, films and greetings. “In her own way – says Giorgio Monaco, managing director of Italian Classic XV – she was one lectio magistralis of shame”. “Massimo was serious, sincere, available, reliable – adds Massimo Giovanelli, teammate and captain of “Mouse” also in the national team -, the best you could wish for from someone who, on the pitch, plays with you for life or death” .

The closest relationship, even before being born, was with the (monozygotic) twin Marcello. Which he says: “Inseparable, one the shadow of the other. If one got sick, the other got sick too. And this faculty continued forever. At the end of my career, in Prato, when I was a player and coach of Alghero, I suffered a compound fracture of my left humerus. He was playing in Rome, got up from a scrum and asked what had happened to me. Nobody knew. It was I who called him on the phone and told him about the accident”. The twinning was slightly removed in sport: Massimo pilone and Marcello wing on the rugby fields, Massimo peso and disco and Marcello 200 and 400 meters on the athletics tracks. His South African education helped to forge his character and reveal his talent. For Massimo a program worthy of the Marines: up and down the hills, jerks and accelerations in zigzags on the meadows, finally – and here “Mouse” spoke of him – lifting weights in the courtyard. An art developed by studying static positions and lines of force in order not to waste energy. It is not enough to lay the foundations to build a house: the house must be made anti-seismic. And every melee, as we know, is equivalent to an earthquake.

Massimo Cuttitta died two years ago, on April 11, 2021, of complications due to Covid. She was 54 years old. Those were terrible days. A few hours later he passed the ball (the world of rugby uses to say so) too Marco Bollesan, another warrior, from an earlier era. That was considered our oval tribute to a planetary epidemic. But rugby players (this too is said among the citizens of Ovalia) never die. “Mouse” continues to push not only with the Cuttitta Cup, but also with the Cuttitta Challenge, an international youth tournament involving a thousand young rugby players. Maybe, who knows, maybe one day one of them will become as big as Massimo. The biggest mouse in memory.