Burton: Azzurri can crack Wales
Australian-born Italy flyhalf Kris Burton believes Wales have had things too easy in their three-game winning start to this season’s Six Nations competition.
And the Treviso kicker says Italy need to become the first team to put the Grand Slam favourites under pressure.
Wales have recorded impressive victories in Ireland and at Twickenham.
They have just two games remaining, starting with the visit of Italy on Saturday followed by the probable crunch title decider against France in Cardiff.
Italy, for their part, have lost all three of their matches and are heading once again to a probable wooden spoon clash with Scotland in Rome.
But Burton still believes they can cause an upset in Wales.
“They’re well balanced with a good mobile forward pack, good scrum and big backs,” he said.
“They can vary their game, they can play close, they can play wide and vary it during the game depending on the situation.
“They’re a good, well-rounded team and they look to have the tools to play against any team in the world.
“We’ve just got to look to do what they do and put pressure on them because I don’t think they’ve been put under a lot of pressure yet, they’ve had everything as they want to have it.”
Italy were thumped 42-10 by Ireland last time out with Burton starting on the bench, although he has now regained his position from South Africa-born Tobias Botes.
And he says the Azzurri must find a way to avoid the second half collapse that saw the Irish notch up 25 unanswered points.
“Obviously I’m happy to start again and hopefully we can have a better result than in the first three matches,” said Burton.
“We hope to play for 80 minutes and put a lot of pressure on Wales.
“We just stopped coming off our line of defence and (Ireland) started making yards, it’s always hard to play if you’re going backwards, especially in defence.
“We’ve just got to make sure we keep coming off the line and put pressure on them for the whole 80 minutes.
“I don’t think it’s a worry, basically we know what we did wrong last game. We’ve got to go out there, stick to our game plan and do the right things this time.”
Burton also points to a pair of other games, both involving England, that give him confidence.
Italy led England 15-6 early in the second half before being edged out 19-15 while England matched Wales at Twickenham until a late breakaway try from a careless turnover.
“England definitely pushed them and (Wales) only scored their try from a tackle, turnover and kick through,” said Burton.
“Apart from that it was a pretty even game, England didn’t score a lot of points, all from the boot, but Wales didn’t score a lot of tries either.
“We put England under pressure when we played them so if we can do that with Wales and eliminate those errors, such as England did when they lost the ball and Wales scored, that’s what decided the game.”
AFP
