Wales must use shock Italy loss as much-needed wake-up call

Maybe this is exactly what Welsh rugby needed. Until Ange Capuozzo produced one of the most scintillating runs in Six Nations history to set up a 79th-minute try for Edoardo Padovani, Wales were winning a game they deserved to lose. In front of their fans in Cardiff, and celebrating personal milestones of Alun Wyn Jones and Dan Biggar, the team were sloppy, unimaginative and disjointed. But they were winning.

Wayne Pivac would no doubt have lamented his side’s performance but would have taken solace in the result. Good teams win ugly, or so the adage goes. And though few who have watched Wales stutter across the tournament would argue that they are a good side, a win would have been enough to place them level on points with England and Scotland.

Then Capuozzo unleashed hell from distance, Padovani dotted down under the posts and Paolo Garbisi coolly converted the extras to consign Wales to a first home defeat by Italy. So rather than ugly wins, Pivac spoke of former glories.

“I think everyone was pretty happy with the Six Nations last year and the way we were heading,” the coach said, referencing Wales’s title-winning campaign in 2021. But therein lies the problem. That triumph, commendable though it was, merely disguised a damaging fault line running through the professional game that now looks wide enough to swallow Pivac whole.

“They’re entitled to their view,” he said when asked to respond to a growing list of critics calling for him to be sacked. “On the basis of the competition we had last year with the squad and what we did over the last three weeks, building depth and having creditable performances against quality opposition, Italy is a backward step.

“It’s probably the lowest point in most of the players’