The1973 Italy rugby union tour of South Africa and Rhodesia was a series of matches played between June and 1973 in South Africa and Rhodesia by Italy national rugby union team. It was the second time that the "Azzurri" toured outside Europe, after a short tour in Madagascar in 1973. The experience signed a turn in the story of Italian rugby: before of that, contact with the bigger union members was almost non-existent, and limited only to confrontations with France (between 1952 and 1967).