By Lestyn
February 20 2003

We should have seen it coming, our sixth straight defeat on the opening day and our first ever loss to the Italians. I wouldn't complain if We'd seen a fully committed performance, but needless to say this was anything but one.

Hansen had promised a performance, as Him and Charvis talked our game up beforehand. There was a lot of optimism, despite all our injury woe, with so many in-form player's coming in We should really have been looking to win by a comfortable margin, maybe it was over confidence that contributed to our downfall.

Thing's didn't look very good in the opening stages, when the Italians Romanian born centre Stoica drove over, only to be denied by the referee's whistle, but second's later prop Di Carli barged His way through.

But there lead wasn't going to last for long, Steve Williams was on hand to collect a pass from Tom Shanklin after a patient passing build up. The scores were tied at seven all after only eight minutes.

The sort of stuff we were expecting from the back division surfaced, when the home side surrendered possession in Our our half and Gareth Thomas simply cut inside and offloaded to Shanklin. The Saracens outside centre made a 50 metre dash for the line, leaving Azzuri defenders trailing.

Instead of pulling away and building on the lead, debutant hooker Festuccia crossed over in the corner after a spell of concentrated pressure on our line. Dominguez converted to level thing's up.

Harris edged us back into the lead with a penalty with quarter of an hour of the half remaining. Rhys Williams really should have gone all the way after receiving an offload from Leigh Davies in midfield, but instead He choose to lob a pass out wide for Mark Jones, even though only a lock blocked His way. The pass was just to long for Jones to take.

Dominquez levelled again with a penalty, shortly afterwards the only forward who deserved a try for Us, Martyn Williams was agonisingly close to getting one, only for Him to spill the ball with the line inches away. But yet again Dominguez's boot struck, this time the veteran dropping a goal just before half time.

At 20-17 We were still favourites, and the rollicking the players got from Steve Hansen should have been enough to motivate them.

The beginning of the half was very very scrappy, with little constructive play from either side, although it was evident the Italians were beginning to take the upper hand.

Mefin Davies's nightmare was brought to an end, the Ponty hooker had struggled with his throwing all day, contributing to a woeful performance in the lineouts. He was replaced by Gareth Williams and shortly afterwards Steve Williams was taken off for Dafydd Jones. Mike Owen moved into the lock slot.

The home side were the only one's who looked like scoring at all, stringing several phases of playing together. Something we were incapable of.

In the centre Matthew J Watkins replaced His Llanelli team mate Leigh Davies for His first cap. In an attempt to increase His sides lead, Dominguez failed with a drop goal after yet more Italian pressure.

It was ironic that after our best scrum of the game, the next We found ourselves going swiftly backwards, Peel was put on the back foot and Troncon's steal, led to Kiwi born number eight Phillips driving over. The conversion by Dominguez increased the Italian lead to ten points at 27-17.

Charvis's ineffectual afternoon was brought to an end, the captain replaced by Gavin Thomas was spotted quite clearly having a joke on the bench, despite the perilous scoreline. Which is totally unacceptable, having failed to lead from the front all afternoon, Martyn Williams has to takeover that role and a new number eight must be found.

Saying that Charvis's replacement Gavin Thomas was almost as bad. You have to wonder why the Bath based player is anywhere near the squad, let alone on the field ahead of the likes of Richard Parks and company.

The prospect of a first defeat by Italy began to dawn on the players, and they started to chuck the ball around. Harris stepped well to send Peel over in the corner, but a missed conversion meant any faint chance of a win was wiped out.

Man Of the Match - Tom Shanklin

There weren't that many players I could give this to, but Shanklin just edged out Martyn Williams. The Saracen's centre proved his doubter's wrong by first setting up the opening try and then sprinting in for the second. His defence work was second to none, Hansen may be tempted to move Him to inside centre against England, bringing Jamie Robinson back in to the outside centre slot.

Italy Scorers:
Tries: De Carli, Festuccia, Phillips
Cons: Dominguez 3
Pens: Dominguez
DGs: Dominguez 2

Wales Scorers:
Tries: S Williams, Shanklin, Peel
Cons: Harris 2
Pens: Harris

Italy: 15 Paulo Vaccari, 14 Mauro Bergamasco, 13 Cristian Stoica, 12 Giovanni Raineri ( Mirco Bergamasco), 11 Denis Dallan, 10 Diego Dominguez, 9 Allesandro Troncon (captain), 8 Matt Phillips, 7 Aaron Persico, 6 Andrea de Rossi, 5 Marco Bortolami, 4 Cristian Bezzi, 3 Ramiro Martínez (Salvatore Perugini), 2 Carlo Festuccia, 1 Giampiero de Carli.
Unused replacements: 16 Andrea Moretti, 18 Mark Giacheri, 19 Scott Palmer, 20 Juan Manuel Queirolo, 21 Ramiro Pez.

Wales: 15 Rhys Williams, 14 Mark Jones ( Ceri Sweeney), 13 Tom Shanklin, 12 Leigh Davies ( Matthew Watkins), 11 Gareth Thomas, 10 Iestyn Harris, 9 Dwayne Peel, 8 Colin Charvis (Captain) (Gavin Thomas), 7 Martyn Williams, 6 Michael Owen, 5 Steve Williams ( Dafydd Jones), 4 Robert Sidoli, 3 Ben Evans, 2 Mefin Davies ( Gareth Williams), 1 Iestyn Thomas.
Unused replacements: 17 Gethin Jenkins, 20 Gareth Cooper.

Yellow card(s): Cristian Bezzi, Italy,
Red card(s): None

Referee: Joël Jutge (France)
Touch judges: Chris White (England), Alain Rolland (Ireland)

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