The trans-Alpine clash takes place at Stade Jean Bouin on Sunday, and former Italy hooker Bettoni, who used to turn out for Stade Français at that very same venue, talks us through the fixture.
Bettoni, 32, has been at Stade Rennais for the best part of a decade now. In rugby, the number of Italian national teams that can boast of having defeated France three times in the Championship - and, indeed, in Test matches outside of official competitions - is very small.
The esteemed cohort includes just five players, and they are all female: namely Sara Barattin, Manuela Furlan, Lucia Gai, Michela Sillari and Melissa Bettoni.
Bettoni knows full well the challenge that awaits Giovanni Raineri’s team this weekend - and, possibly, how to overcome it. But first, let’s trace her far-flung path in the game.
"I started playing rugby in 2018 in Piedmont with a small club called Valsesia,” recalls Bettoni. “Then I moved to Rome with the Red&Blu for a couple of seasons, before following a dear friend, Cecilia Zublena, to Grenoble for a year.
“After that I decided to experience life in New Zealand, and then I came back and started this adventure in Rennes that has lasted nine years.”
It’s the capital of Brittany, north-western France, where she now calls home. After having been a staple of Stade Rennais for such a long time, she worked as coach of the under-18 team and as co-ordinator of women's rugby development.
Her connection to her home country remains strong as ever. She is a scrum coach for Italian U20 women’s team, while in Rennes she has opened an Italian restaurant with her French husband, with whom she has started a family. On 20th October of last year, twins Aura and Charles were born.
”After a few months I took them with me on a 15-hour trip to Italy, so the three-and-a-half hours it will take on Sunday to go to Paris doesn't even frighten me that much. Then they can see their many aunts waiting for them."
Bettoni made her Test debut together with Michela Sillari on 12 February 2012 in Recco, in a very hard Championship match against England. She went on to have a ten-year career, earning a total of 76 caps, and one which came to an end with an historic quarter-final appearance in the World Cup.
In between, though, those three wins against Les Bleues in the Championship.
"Right now, between the Six Nations period and motherhood, I must admit that I am a bit nostalgic. On the other hand, after you spend ten years of your life playing a tournament like the Six Nations, not being there now is strange,” she allows. “I carry with me a lot of good memories. Definitely the first cap, although it was tough against England. I told myself, ‘Okay, I have to try to be stronger’. In the end it was an incentive to work, to give myself goals, to not be disheartened that I needed to grow and give my best.
“And then the victories against France I remember with a lot of pleasure - especially in 2019 when I scored a try - but above all we won with a bonus, finishing second in the final standings. I returned to France with a certain satisfaction, which didn't always happen. In fact, I often had to suffer teasing and jokes at training sessions.”
Padova, Stadio Plebiscito, 17 March 2019: the day Italy women's team touched level of greatness by finishing second to England in the best Six Nations to date for an Italian national team. It was with three wins and a draw, winning the last one on home soil against France, 31-12, with a monumental performance that moved then coach Andrea Di Giandomenico to tears.
But that win against France had been preceded by two others: Rovato, Lombardy, in 2013 (13-12); and Badia Polesine, Rovigo, in 2015 (17-12).
"So many memories. In Rovato we played on a pitch at the limits of playability, with so much mud the French blamed their loss on the conditions of the pitch,” says Bettoni. “We won by one point with a kick by Veronica Schiavon at the end. These are victories you don't forget, particularly against France. Winning at their place is tough and Italy have never managed it yet.
“They have a passionate and warm crowd; they really feel at home and play good rugby. In the end, they are still one of the favourite teams, even though they may not have played to their usual levels this year.”
For France in 2024, a win against Ireland in which they failed at times to deal with the Irish physicality, and an even more challenging outing in round two against Scotland.
Of Italy’s opponents on Sunday, Bettoni says: ”They’re a team that is rebuilding, a bit like ours. We are similar in that respect, with a new staff, different faces and a lot of youngsters. Italy have some really promising players. I'm thinking of Vittoria Vecchini, Alyssa D'Incà and others. All the youngsters have integrated well and are doing a good job.”
She has good knowledge of a number of the French players. “I know some girls, having coached them, like number two Elisa Riffonneau. I think they have a different mentality to ours, although it is not easy to explain in detail. They have the good fortune to have grown up in this world, to be followed and supported constantly by the federation and the staff, but I think the game plan does not fit their philosophy, and so they have difficulty in getting into their idea of the game.
“This could work to our advantage. We’re coming off the back of a victory against Ireland in an away match that should give strength and confidence to the group. If we go to Paris with a winning spirit and the same desire to put ourselves on the line as we did in Dublin, we could come out with a good result. Obviously, I hope so. We’re riding a good wave, so to speak.
“I only ever worked in the national team with Andrea Di Giandomenico, so I don't know Raineri as a coach. That said, I know him for other reasons: when I played with Red&Blu I lived in Colleferro, near Rome, which is his home town, and I was even assigned his flat at the club because he was in South Africa.
“Now he is joined by Francesco Iannucci and Plinio Sciamanna, a complete staff with good coaches and they are doing a good job. The girls have also been able to prepare a bit with WXV, and despite their youth there is a fair amount of experience: players like Ilaria Arrighetti, Sofia Stefan, Lucia Gai, Giordana Duca, Michela Sillari - even though she unfortunately got injured - who are accompanying the new recruits along a path that I know very well. I know that it is not easy at the beginning’.
Among them is the player who succeeded Melissa Bettoni's in the number two jersey: Vittoria Vecchini, fresh from two tries and a Player of the Match performance at the RDS Arena in Dublin.
"Vittoria is pretty tough, she is a very mobile girl on the field,” says Bettoni of her fellow forward. “She is everywhere: a bit of a back row-style player, and that is what you look for in these dynamic number twos today. She carries the ball forward, she's a strong tackler, she works well in the scrum. Maybe she needs to adjust her throwing in the lineout a little bit, but it's always been something for me to work on more too.
“These are specific things to train, which aren't always easy. You need co-ordination between blocking and throwing, which must be optimal, but I think in general she shows great promise.”
