Stand-in Italy captain Leonardo Ghiraldini has launched a rallying cry to the embattled Azzurri as they look to end their Six Nations campaign with victory over title-chasing Wales on Saturday.
Ghiraldini takes over the captain’s armband from injured No.8 Sergio Parisse, who has been ruled out for their tournament finale with an ankle injury.
The responsibilty of lifting Italy from last week’s 29-0 rout by France now falls on Ghiraldini — and the Leicester Tigers hooker believes defeat to France has provided a reminder of what it takes to become a competitive force in the tournament.
“We suffered something of a psychological problem last week, but we’ve spoken about it with each other and we’re working on it,” Ghiraldini told media on Friday.
“We know that, no matter what happens on the pitch, we have to keep the heads focused at every moment for the entire 80 minutes.
“For us the Wales game is a great opportunity to show that what happened in the second half against France was a blip.”
Italy approached the France game brimming with confidence having secured their first win of this year’s campaign, a 22-19 win over the Scots at Murrayfield.
But after missing a series of early penalty attempts, Italy went in for the break scoreless and trailing by nine points, and had no response when France added to their score with two tries in the second half.
“We’ve analysed the loss to France,” added Ghiraldini.
“We started with the right attitude and belief but failed to put points on the board when we should have and that took away some of our certainties, while France’s confidence just grew.”
After being dropped last week in favour of Tommaso Allan, fly-half Kelly Haimona returns to rekindle his half-back partnership with Edoardo Gori for Saturday’s 1230 GMT kick-off at the Stadio Olimpico.
Italy have also made two changes to the front row, with Martin Castrogiovanni returning at tighthead prop in place of Matias Aguero and loosehead Michele Rizzo coming in for Dario Chistolini, who drops back to the replacements bench.
Parisse’s absence and Samuela Vunisa’s switch to No.8 hands a 101st cap for the now marginal veteran Mauro Bergamasco, who comes in at openside flanker.
The changes, especially Parisse’s absence, are expected to dent Italy’s already flagging confidence.
But while coach Jacques Brunel anticipates a “tough encounter” against Wales, Ghiraldini has called for Italy to believe they can eclipse last week’s poor display with a stirring performance against Wales.
Ghiraldini added: “We have one more game left to play. Every match is different and our win over Scotland came while we were going through a tougher spell than we are now.
“Let’s go out there and give it our best. We know we can go out there and prove a few people wrong. We have to learn to suffer in the difficult moments and keep focused on our jobs at every moment.”