WALES RAIN IN ITALY

 

  ITALY                 9   -   26               WALES

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They say Rome wasn`t built in a day, But on this day Wales had built up something called Confidence amongst the Welsh ranks. Wales came into this clash with the Italians on the back of a famous win in Paris beating the French on an awful pitch and to the boos of thousands of French fans at their own players. This time they were met with a 75% full stadium in Rome and bad weather instead.

So as kickoff approached so did the rain from the heavens, Wales to be honest dominated the hosts as Italy were pressured in all areas as the scrum which is normally their well known for a good scrum, However Wales completely out scrummed the Italians and had them on the rack.

Yet the the bad weather that was coming down was awful to play in and a couple of knock ons didn`t help either side to be fair.  The visitors took the lead after an offside by the home team gave Leigh Halfpenny the chance to kick over from close range to make it 3-0 for the men in Redin the early stages.

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Italy drew level shortly after when Gethin Jenkins was penalised for collapsing in the scrum and gave Kris Burton the chance to kick for goal, Which he duly obliged and make it 3-3. Italy once again failed to deal with the power from the Welsh pack and they powered forward and the Italian pack collapsed like a house of cards with gave them another penalty and Halfpenny kick went over to retake the lead again. 

The referee had words with Martin Castrogiovanni the captain of Italy side as he was starting to show signs of annoyance with the scrum and the captain complaints over it, when they were simply being outplayed. Halfpenny again kicked over to make it 9-3 and extend the lead to 6 points.

It showed at point the wet conditions when the Italians went for the corner from the half way line his kick went to Cuthbert inside the Welsh 22metre line missing touch but was luckily knocked on to spare the kickers blushes and was in a better position too. From that following possession Burton tried a drop goal which went wide and to add insult to injury a Welsh player barged into him accidently.

Italy won a penalty when the Wales scrum was going down and the referee gave a stern warning to both captains over the scrums, Telling them anymore and it`s sinbins. So Kris Burton stepped up and put it through the uprights trailing now 6-9.  Wales won a penalty themselves as Gethin Jenkins blocked an attempted kick away by the Italian player and the player then jumped on the ball to stop the Welsh forwards getting it and was called for not releasing the ball.

So Wales had a great chance to pull away again and with "Mr Reliable" Leigh Halfpenny kicking you`d think it was a safe bet to convert, But on this occassion his kick drifted wide of the post and Italy were let off.

 

Second half  Wales changed gear by upping their play abit and when a nothing kick up field by Mike Philips bobbled between 2 Italian players & Johnathon Davies kicked it towards the try line and got scored a try along with the conversion to make it 16-6 and extend it to 10 points the lead.  Italy pulled it back to 7 as Wales tackled a Italy player too early in the line-out and so Burton scored the penalty with half an hour left in the game.

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Italy were really struggling to deal with the power and force of the Welsh pack and yet again the Italians crumbled under the pressure and gave Halfpenny a chance to make the lead back to 10 points again. The Cardiff Blues Winger kicked it over the post for 19-9 lead, Wales defense came under a bit of pressure but were never in much trouble as Italy lacked the cutting edge and ideas of penetrrating the Welsh back line.

Worst was to come for the Azzurri as captain was given a yellow card and so was sin binned for 10 mins as he was warned by the referee many times for popping up in the scrum but he still carried on doing it. So the following play Wales attacked down towards the 22metre line and the forwards stretched the home side as they quickly moved the ball out towards the left wing & when Davies sold the dummy to Canale, That gave Cuthbert time to take the ball and ran to the line leaving the blue shirt in his wake and give Wales the killing off try.


Italy had fair amount of possession after the try but again didn`t create anything to mention as Wales defended their lead and were never worried at all. Handling errors were a factor as it reached 10 a piece for both sides making silly mistakes and Italy had a great chance when Zanni was thrown the ball but he knocked on as if he had held it there was no red shirts to stop him.

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Cuthbert did the same not long after as a poor pass aimed for him teammate nearly fell into the hands of the Wales player but it was too quick to take. Wales played out the remaining minutes and sit 2nd in table behind England with a possible Title decider at the Millenium stadium to come.