Italy punish Welsh errors

Fifth place will be a disappointing end to the Women’s Six Nations for Italy, but a win in Wales – their fourth win the last six games against the Welsh – will have cheered the team at the end of a long tournament.

March 20th, 2016

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Italy punish Welsh errors

Sioned Harries scored twice for Wales, but was still on the losing side (picture: WRU)

The Italians spent much of the opening 10  minutes on the defence, but as soon as they broke out they scored with a great team move putting in Beatrice Rigoni out on the left. Again Wales attacked, and again Italy defended until the 27th minute when it was Rigoni who reacted quickest to a Welsh fumble, grabbing the ball and racing 75m to score. When Sillari added a penalty Italy were not only in the box seat for the game, but were within four points of leapfrogging Wales in the final table.

However a yellow card for Arrighetti finally gave the home team an advantage and, without the Italian prop on the field, the Welsh forwards were able to drive over the line, Sioned Harries getting the touch.

With Wales still a player up at the start of the second half a repeat of the earlier maul gave the same result, and with Wilkins this time on target with the kick the Italian advantage was down to a single point, 12-13.

Back to 15 players the Italians took the initiative and a second Sillari penalty extended their lead to 16-12 after 56 minutes. It was a slight advantage, but enough as Italian defence proved impossible for the Welsh to break down.

At the end of the match Italian coach Andrea Di Giandomenico said: "I am very happy to have finished the tournament with a victory. We improved over these two months and we have not perhaps collected all of the rewards we deserved along the way. I am especially happy for the girls who have worked hard. We have now qualified for the World Cup and now begins a new path for us to work on.”

"They punished us when we made mistakes and we were chasing the game quite early which was disappointing," said Wales coach Rhys Edwards. "But on the whole again we showed glimpses of what we are capable of - I think we are in a better place than we have been previously - it's important we stick together now and kick on over the next 12-18 months.

"We got ourselves back into the game after giving them a big head start but we made simple errors and we have to cut them out of our game to stay in these sort of games. This squad is capable of doing some really good things, we've shown it in glimpses, our challenge now is to be consistent against all the teams. We've beaten everyone over the two years - apart from Italy - so it's our challenge to be consistent and win when we are under pressure."

Scorers: T: 10 'm. Rigoni (0-5); T: 27'. Rigoni (0-10); P: 34'; Sillari (0-13); T: 40' Harries (5-13); T: 46'. Harries conv. Wikins (12-13); P: 56' Sillari (12-16)

Wales: Taviner; Dainton, Jones, Lake (67 'Rowland), Evans (73' Hywel); Wilkins, Bevan (58 'Snowsill); Harries, Williams, Taylor (cap); Lillicrap (54 'Rowe), Powell-Hughes, Evans (67' Hale), Phillips (51' Price), York (67' Edwards)

Not used:  Hale, Edwards, Rowe, Butchers, Rowland, Hywel.

Italy: Sillari; Magatti, Cioffi, Zangirolami, Stefan; Rigoni, Barattin (cap); Giordano, Locatelli, Este (28 'Arrighetti) (77' Ruzza); Trevisan, Pillotti; Bettoni (73 'Gai), Cammarano, Cucchiella.

Not used: Nicoletti, Tounesi, Folli, Madia

J. Neville

Cards: 39 'yellow card Arrighetti (Italy); 55 'yellow card Harries (Wales)

About 2000 spectators

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