Petrarca Padova

Rovigo is the name that comes up whenever Petrarca's season is discussed. Petrarca's version of that rivalry is written in black: the home kit is entirely black, which gave the club its nicknames "I Neri" and "I Tuttoneri", the Blacks and the All Blacks.

The club began in 1947 at the Collegio Universitario Antonianum in Padua, started by Pino Bonaiti, Lalo Santini and Gastone Munaron as the rugby section of the multi-sport Unione Sportiva Petrarca. Within twenty-two years it was winning titles. Between 1969 and 1987 Petrarca took 11 of its first 12 Italian championships, including five in a row from 1969–70 to 1973–74. Many of the players in those sides came up through the youth system, a route later followed by Leonardo Ghiraldini, the brothers Mauro and Mirco Bergamasco, and Lucio Boccaletto.

In 1984 the Australian winger David Campese arrived and stayed until 1988. After the 1986–87 championship the wins stopped. It took 24 years for the next, in 2010–11, and two more followed in 2017–18 and 2021–22. The last of those came in a season when the club also won the Coppa Italia, adding to the cup wins of 1981–82 and 2000–01.

The ground, the Stadio Plebiscito, holds 9,000 and sits inside the Centro Memo Geremia sports complex, which opened in 1989.

Rovigo is where the comparison always ends up. Both clubs came out of the Veneto and built their reputations on the same championship, so a Petrarca title has usually meant a Rovigo side finishing behind it, or the other way round. That is why the derby gets its national name.