Wales showed a lot of self-belief in their victory at Murrayfield last weekend according to defence coach Shaun Edwards and he believes they are set to take that into their clash with Italy on Saturday.
Edwards was speaking just after the Wales team arrived at their hotel in Rome ahead of their third 2011 RBS 6 Nations clash and he revealed the squad has been working very hard ahead of the game against the Azzurri.
“Italy in Rome is a massive game and they are going to be hurting after what happened to them at Twickenham,” said Edwards.
“We have been working hard as usual and worked on our discipline because we know that they are going to play with a lot of passion and intensity.
“We have to try and match that intensity and guard the storm and try to play some attacking rugby with the ball.
“We all know that the Italian set piece is very strong in particular the scrum and the driven lineout and they are exceptional at that and we need to counteract that.
“They have some great backs and have been very creative in midfield especially and we have to defend well against them as they cut Australia and Ireland open there and scored some lovely tries.”
Wales went down to 13 men for a few minutes during their comprehensive victory over Scotland nearly a fortnight ago but Edwards believes the experience could stand the team in good stead in the future
“As crazy as it sounds, going down to 13 men against Scotland and holding our line like we did against can really build a teams character,” he added.
“Experiences like that can mould the team and bring them together, I thought we defended really well.”
