Wales fans looking for a crumb of comfort ahead of the biggest game in Welsh rugby history in many a year will be pleased to hear that Italy have never won their second game in a Six Nations tournament.
Forget second-season syndrome; Italy suffer from the second-round syndrome. The reasons behind this would test the best of psychologists, but the plain fact of the matter is that none of the Azzurri’s meagre return of 15 wins in 126 Six Nations matches have come at this stage of the competition.
England have been Italy’s second-round opponent in almost half of those 25 matches (12), Ireland have featured six times, France three and Wales and Scotland just two apiece.
The only previous occasions that Italy have come up against Wales in round two were in the first year of the Azzurri’s introduction in 2000 and again in 2019. Wales won the first of those two matches in Cardiff, 47-19, while they triumphed 26-15 in Rome in the second instance.
In two of the last three years of the championship, Italy failed to trouble the scorers in round two, losing 33-0 at home to England in 2022 and 36-0 away to Ireland in 2024.
In addition to striving to break their unwanted record, Italy are in the unfamiliar position of going into Saturday’s match as favourites.
Gonzalo Quesada’s men, coming off a 31-19 defeat to Scotland in Edinburgh, are gearing up for the first of their three home fixtures, and a seven to eight-point win over a Wales team on a record-losing run of 13 tests is being forecast by the bookmakers.
Italy have beaten Wales a total of four times, two of them in the last three years, and their biggest margin of victory remains the eight-point home win in 2003 (30-22).
