Giacomo Nicotera

He never played a single age-grade international, and he was a back-row forward until somebody moved him to hooker.

Giacomo Nicotera went through none of Italy’s age-grade sides. Not one. He also spent his teens in the back row, and only became a hooker during three seasons at Mogliano. By 2025 he was captaining his country on tour.

Hooker at Stade Français, 1.83m and 108kg, and 30 years old.

Trieste is where he is from, and Venjulia Trieste is where he started, winning a regional under-16 title with them in 2012. Mogliano’s youth section took him next; he was an Italian under-18 champion there and made his Eccellenza debut for the club, and it was there that the change of position happened.

A season at San Donà followed, then Rovigo, where the trophies are. A Coppa Italia in 2020 and the Italian championship in 2021, and from 2020-21 a permit-player arrangement that let him play for Benetton in the Pro14 while contracted in the domestic league.

That is the route that eventually produced a cap. Italy A used him against Spain in Madrid in November 2021. Kieran Crowley named him in a thirty-three for the 2022 Six Nations a few months later and he debuted against Scotland. His first international try came in Bucharest that summer, in a 45-13 win over Romania.

He stayed at Benetton until the end of 2023-24, went to the 2023 World Cup in Italy’s squad, and on the 2025 tour of Namibia and South Africa was made captain, leading the side for the first time against Namibia.

A hooker who came late to the position and has never had a pathway behind him is a specific kind of player: he arrived at 108kg and 1.83m, at a club that already had the throw covered, on the strength of what he does in contact.