Italy face World Cup halves crisis

Oct 29, 2017 - 6:03 PM Just one game into their Rugby League World Cup campaign and Italy face a halves crisis after Jack Johns joined Terry Campese on the sidelines in their 36-12 hammering from Ireland in Cairns.

The Azzurri are sweating on scan results from Johns after the 20-year-old son of ex-Kangaroo Matthew and nephew of Immortal Andrew was sent to hospital with a suspected arm fracture suffered early in the second half of the Wolfhounds' Sunday romp.

It was a shattering blow after ex-Kangaroos playmaker Campese succumbed to a calf complaint before the match, following an emotional lead-up.

He was a pallbearer at his aunt's funeral in Canberra on Thursday.

Italy coach Cameron Ciraldo was keeping his fingers crossed both could return for their next match against the USA in Townsville on Sunday.

"Hopefully we get some good news but for him he'd be pretty shattered right now if he were to miss the rest of the games," Ciraldo said of Newcastle Under 20s star Johns.

"He's a real good kid, didn't get much to go off today - Ireland put them under a lot of pressure.

"Hopefully Jack gets a chance to bounce back next week and gets another go - for our team's sake hopefully Campo is back as well."

World No.12 Italy were tipped to launch a maiden finals berth at just their second Cup after loading up with NRL stars James Tedesco, Nathan Brown and Paul Vaughan.

But someone forgot to tell world No.8 Ireland who jumped to a 20-0 lead in sweltering Cairns heat after 30 minutes, led inspirationally by skipper Liam Finn.

Italy clawed their way back to 20-12 moments after losing Johns in the second half but the Wolfhounds were not to be denied.

"We didn't get the start right, didn't touch the ball for the first five or six minutes," Ciraldo said.

"In the heat that made it pretty hard, took a lot of energy out of us but we did it to ourselves.

"I didn't get one bit of taking Ireland too lightly from our guys, we were in a good place we just didn't get the start right."

Source: AAP