Edoardo Todaro is the Italian teenager taking English rugby by storm

Another year, another talented tyro emerging from the Northampton Saintsacademy and impressing in first-team action. Just as Henry Pollock hit the ground sprinting in extraordinary fashion last season, Edoardo Todaro has enjoyed a blazing start to his senior career.

Todaro has totted up three tries in as many Prem appearances this season. The versatile back, who was born in Milan before accepting an academic and sports scholarship to Ipswich School at the age of 14, had not even played on the wing before this term.

Phil Dowson, the Northampton director of rugby, trusts a prolific club pathway that identifies and nurtures those ready for the fast track. He has not been surprised with how the “hugely confident” Todaro is making a seamless transition from the age-grade ranks. A first cap for Italy could come as soon as this November, with the youngster launched into Gonzalo Quesada’s squad for autumn Tests against Australia, South Africa and Chile.

The man himself modestly suggests that rugby union became his vocation through a process of elimination. Todaro rates himself as “pretty c---” at football. He did not like either rowing or athletics and “wasn’t good” at swimming. His parents, Sylvia and Gianluigi, instilled a strong work ethic and contacted Andrea Pozzi while the latter was coaching at Ipswich with Charlie Reed.

“We’d seen a few clips of Edoardo but weren’t too sure of the standard of rugby he was playing in Italy,” remembers Reed. “We had a Zoom call and thought ‘let’s get him over’.

“Edoardo rocked up to the playing fields, asked for a bag of balls and put his kicking tee right on a touchline. Then he started slotting conversions for fun. We all breathed a sigh of relief and thought ‘we’ve made a good decision’. He made his senior debut with Ipswich School at the age of 15.”

Although Todaro’s grasp of English was decent, Ipswich colleagues helped him settle by using the odd Italian call. Giavellotto, meaning “spear”, was a line-out trick play. “We scored from it in the under-15 national cup semi-final against QEGS Wakefield,” smiles Reed, who joined the Northampton set-up full-time in 2023.

Todaro is a scurrying, balanced and deceptively powerful athlete with poise on the ball. His attitude is continually commended as well. Dowson likens his self-assured manner to that of Pollock, applauding mentors for allowing his individuality to flourish. This is clearly a manifesto commitment of the Saints academy run by Mark Hopley.

“We want people who are willing to be as competitive as they can be, but also feeling comfortable to be themselves,” Reed adds. “If you can make someone feel at home really quickly, and they can feel as though their character and the way they are as a person is valued, the stuff on the pitch will be a lot better a lot quicker.

“I don’t want to speak for the senior coaches, but I don’t think they’d be too happy if I gave them eight players who all wear the same boots, all laugh at the same jokes and all have the same haircut. We want people to come here and bring different things, be interesting people and be interested in those around them.”

Does Reed also discern similarities with Pollock? “I definitely see parallels in the authenticity of both of them,” he answers. “You can have all of the confidence and all of the character in the world, but if you haven’t got the diligence and hard work alongside that, you’d struggle to break into the side as those players have.

“What I’m extremely proud of about Edoardo’s development is that he’s consistently worked hard. He’s done everything asked of him: in the gym, with his individuals [skills] and the way he reviews things. It was a very similar story with Henry as well.”

Embarking on an online economics degree next week, Todaro is “book-smart”, a quality that has helped him on the field. “I’ve found, coaching him, that you only really need to tell him things once and it clicks,” Reed says.

“A good example would be Tommy [Freeman] getting injured at the weekend [against Leicester Tigers] and Edoardo moving to the other wing to fulfil Tommy’s role, having not practised that all week. All he needed was a little messaging and he made the line-break and gave the ball to Tom Pearson to set up a try.

“He’s got the ability to retain information and put it onto the pitch, which is why he is developing the way he is. He has really good physical potential, but the pace he can process information is really fast, and that’s what is helping him at the moment.”

Reed has always recognised a mind-set of “wanting to consistently feel challenged” and has endeavoured to “put the best appropriate challenge in front of him”. Todaro stood out for Saints under-18s when a year younger than most of his opponents, then scored four tries against Yorkshire in what would be his only game in the same team last season.

Instead of staying among his peer group, he was whisked into the Italy U20 squad and featured at inside centre, outside centre and full-back. That helped Todaro earn a visa so he could sign a contract at Northampton, while also providing the chance to chat with Azzurri head coach Quesada. More milestones seem likely to follow, as Reed has suspected for some time.

“Edoardo’s senior debut for Ipswich School was against Denstone College. We had an injury at fly-half and he played there as a 15-year-old in the first-team. And that was probably the best game I saw him play for the school.

“He’s just someone who loves the deep end. That’s how you knew his ceiling would be high, because he has an unfazed nature about taking on challenges.”

Unfazed and exciting, Todaro is thriving in the deep end. There is clearly something in the water at Saints.

[Source: Daily Telegraph]