On Saturday, Italy secured their first points of the 2015 Rugby World Cup with a hard-fought, narrow-margin win against Canada, seeded 17th in the rankings.

It was a less than comfortable afternoon in Leeds. Sunshine and a vibrant crowd, once again one of the most pleasant surprises in this so far astonishing edition of the tournament, weren't enough to brighten the mood around the Azzurri's slump in form and results that is now hard to label simply as 'recent'.

A poor overall performance and an even more worrying general lack of ideas were at the base of a hugely disappointing outing which did not even yield a much-needed bonus point, key in the quarterfinal race against Ireland and France. Italy may have won against Canada but coach Jacques Brunel still lost. The Frenchman, who took over from Nick Mallett at the end of 2011 as former Italian Rugby Federation supremo Giancarlo Dondi's last act, was welcomed as a hero at the time of his appointment but has since failed to leave his mark.

Canada- Italy lineout© World Rugby/World Rugby via Getty Images

So far, in his four years in charge, he's been author of a lot of proclamations but numbers reveal that there were very few results in support of his words -- even accepting the celebrated Six Nations wins against European giants France and Ireland, undoubtedly huge achievements for a soccer-driven country like Italy.

Italians have heard everything from the man from Courrensan, south-west France. From an astonishing "We will win the Six Nations" a few years ago, to a more cautious, yet pretty pretentious, "we can beat anybody". But the fact is that Italy lies 15th in the world, its worst ever ranking, and was able to collect only two wins in the last 23 months of international duties, losing for the first time against Japan in Tokyo in June 2014 and falling to a heaviest ever defeat against Scotland in the build-up to this World Cup.

While that is all in the past, the present is even more worrying. At Elland Road, Canada outplayed the Italians and their Kiwi coach Kieran Crawley completely outperformed Brunel. Both teams scored two tries apiece but Italy did so on isolated individual efforts as the overall game plan was pretty ineffective. With plenty of talent out wide, inspired by the explosive legs of DTH Van der Merwe (one of the most under-rated backs in Europe), the 54-year-old former All Black made sure troubles wouldn't come from the set pieces, where Italy have been a dominant force for the last decade, especially in the scrum.

Crawley literally dismantled the Italians with two simple moves: he asked his men to hook quickly from their scrums to allow the ball to come out fast, negating any chance of pressure at the set-piece. That eliminated the threat of conceding penalties to the stronger team but most importantly helped Canada's players conserve physical and mental energy.

© Alex Livesey/Getty Images

Further still, in the lineouts Canada simply disintegrated Brunel's pillars, choosing from the outset not to contest any Italian throws, evidently to not expose themselves to the abrasive rolling mauls that created so many headaches to Scotland in Edinburgh during the last Six Nations campaign. They simply decided not to create opposition: they didn't jump and they even didn't confront the Italian backs after the throw.

Italy got almost 80 minutes to adapt to this but never truly did. It might have been expected that adjustments would be made at half-time and a more determined team would emerge for the second half. Instead, nothing happened. No one decided to hit the defense straight from the uncontested catch to create potential overlap plays outside. Instead, nothing.

There was some questionable management of substitutions, too, and the sense is that the unanswered questions related to selection policy that I highlighted previously are emerging, slowly but surely.

Last but not least, one of the most incomprehensible decisions of the whole afternoon was the choice to gift Canada one precious bonus point in the standings. Two points up in the score, with time running out and a finally dominant scrum, with a few warnings to the North American pack already being issued by referee George Clancy and a penalty to be played five metres from the tryline, Italy opted for a simple penalty that fixed the final score to an unsatisfactory 23-18.

How might this affect the standings at the end of one of the most punishing tournaments in the game's history? It may prove extremely costly if the Canadians can produce a victory later in the tournament, perhaps against Romania. That could lift them to third place and an automatic qualification spot for the 2019 Rugby World Cup, leaving Italy having to qualify.

Italy may be still in reach of a quarterfinals milestone but this group of well-travelled Azzurri is now dangerously at risk of ending its international journey behind a Tier Two nation.