Sean Lynn’s Wales side will still be playing Italy in the final round of the Guinness Six Nations after it was confirmed the game will take place in Parma over the weekend of the funeral of Pope Francis.
The game has been switched to Sunday, 27 April (kick-off 11.30am BST). It had been due to kick-off at Stadio Sergio Lanfranchi at 12.15pm on Saturday, 26 April.
The switch came after the Vatican announced the Pope’s funeral will take place at 9.00am BST on Saturday. The Italian government has declared five days of national mourning in the run-up to the funeral.
On the pitch, Wales will be hoping they can notch their first win of the tournament, and that Ireland can beat Scotland, to avoid finishing bottom of the table for the second season in a row.
The Italians were overhauled by the French in Parma in the last round, losing a 21-12 interval lead before going down fighting 34-21. They beat Scotland 25-17 in Edinburgh in Round 3.
“We don’t want to finish the campaign with the wooden spoon. We are going to Italy to win, and we hope Ireland beat Scotland,” said Wales scrum half Keira Bevan.
“It is always quite nip and tuck against Italy. They were very good against Scotland, and it was a great away win for them.
“Their driving maul was great for them against France and their back three are electric. We are expecting it to be a real physical encounter and a real arm wrestle.
“We have to look after our own ball much better. We are making line breaks, and we must be more physical in not giving up the ball.”
After scoring first in their home clash with Ireland last weekend Sean Lynn’s side were beaten 40-41 by the side ranked No 5 in the world and now face the prospect of finishing with the Wooden Spoon and ending up bottom fo the table for the fourth time in the past six seasons.
“We were brave as a back line and got the ball to the edges a lot more, but our execution around the penalty count gave Ireland easy piggybacks up the field,” added Bevan.
“If you lose the first collision off set piece it is hard to gain control back. Ireland’s speed of ball and physicality at the break down shocked us a bit. They outdid us in that area.
“We haven’t had that 80-minute performance yet, but I do think it will come. We’ve got the right people in the right places and Sean Lynn great for us – he allows us to express ourselves, he challenges us, and he also backs us.
“Given time I think we will kick on and, hopefully, show what we are about in August when it is World Cup time.
“Dan Murphy has come in and been great of us as defence coach. We have adopted a new defensive policy, and it takes time to buy into a new system and that takes time and by the World Cup we will all be on the same page.”
It will be exactly a year to the day on Sunday that Wales won their last Six Nations game against Italy in Round 5 of the 2024 competition. They managed to come out on top 22-20 on that occasion.
“We are taking learnings out of every game, and we have to play to our strengths a bit more. By August we hope to be in a different spot,” said Bevan.
“The confidence is still within the group, we are scoring more points, and we feel our attack is building. We finished third in the Six Nations two years ago, but perhaps we peaked then when we qualified for WXV1
“That was a really challenging tournament for us and after that it could have gone either way in last year’s championship. Do we kick on from there or would it knock out confidence?
“We know we didn’t perform really well in last year’s Six Nations, but I think we’ve performed better this year, although you can’t deny results haven’t gone our way. We have put teams under pressure for glimpses.
“It was a tight first half away in France, we started well against Ireland and put England under pressure for 20 minutes.”