Wales v Italy Match Thread

[Luckless Pedestrian]

First topic message reminder :

Autumn Nations Cup: Fifth-place play-off - Wales v Italy

Venue: Parc y Scarlets, Llanelli Date: Saturday, 5 December Kick-off: 16:45 GMT

Live coverage on S4C and Amazon Prime

WALES

Liam Williams; Josh Adams, George North, Johnny Williams, Louis Rees-Zammit; Callum Sheedy, Kieran Hardy; Nicky Smith, Sam Parry, Tomas Francis, Will Rowlands, Alun Wyn Jones (capt), James Botham, Justin Tipuric, Taulupe Faletau.

Replacements: Elliot Dee, Wyn Jones, Leon Brown, Cory Hill, Aaron Wainwright, Gareth Davies, Ioan Lloyd, Jonah Holmes.

ITALY

Jacopo Trulla; Luca Sperandio, Marco Zanon, Carlo Canna, Monty Ioane; Paolo Garbisi, Stephen Varney; Danilo Fischetti, Luca Bigi (capt), Giosuè Zilocch, Marco Lazzaroni, Niccolp Cannone, Maxime Mbanda, Johan Meyer, Braam Steyn.

Replacements: Leonardo Ghiraldini, Simone Ferrari, Pietro Ceccarelli, Cristian Stoian, Michele Lamaro, Guglielmo Palazzani, Tommaso Allan, Federico Mori.

[Guest]

A few things from the game.

Sheedy has promise but is very, very raw. Nice pass for the try but his kicking from hand is sub par for a test 10. He got picked up for just drifting and shipping the ball on but that's not too bad, Biggar is no running threat either. He looks like he's finding his feet. Anscombe took a few seasons to get comfortable at test level as well. Hope he makes the step up, not really shown enough to demand the starting shirt yet but we need to move away from Biggar at any cost, at least to start, no problem with him coming off the bench.

The best 3 9s have all been the old ones. The young ones haven't performed. Which is worrying for world cup progression. Webb, Lloyd Williams, Gareth Davies. 3 good scrum halves, all pushing 30 or the wrong side of it. I see no reason to drop them though, you have to reward form. Tomos Williams needs to work on his defence and box kicking. Hardy was having second season syndrome last season and probably just needs another 18 months of club rugby to iron out his creases as a pro player and get confident in learning the game. I wouldn't rush either of them before they're ready. Did we let one go in the shape of Varney?

North is not a 13, he cannot defend as a centre. Making judgements about how he attacks in a game v Italy is a fool's logic. Anything good from a strike move or in broken play can be achieved from the wing, it's meaningless to positional-specific skills. Still more than good enough to be the strike winger but LRZ will be pushing him now. Good to have both of them but we need to look elsewhere for a 13 - North is the ultimate quick fix/desperate option and is hopefully a boot up the harris of Tompkins and Watkin who haven't rewarded the faith shown in them. No kicking game to speak of, poor passing, rubbish tackling and balance when it comes to side on tackling. He tackles with his fingers. Not a 13, not a centre. JD2 vital and will be missed whenever he doesn't play. I'd stick with Tompkins as an understudy, however raw he is, until someone else can be found. He's a bit headless at times but he's enthusiastic and looks decent at the very least, a good mix of fast twich speed and agility.

Tipuric and Faletau looking good but have to remember the opposition. So obviously key men to Pivac, which isn't surprising to those who know their rugby.

Didn't take much more from the game. It would be too easy to make silly judgements on the back of playing Italy. Italy were unimpressive for much of the game, playing a flawed version of rugby themselves. A confident Welsh team would have put 50 on them with ease, not waiting late to take the game beyond them.

Disappointing that we played a full Six Nations since the end of lockdown and only beat Italy.