Gatland content as Wales close in on Grand Slam

Wales kept their Grand Slam mission on course after seeing off a determined Italy outfit at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff on Saturday.

Now only France stand in the way of the Welsh, who are only 80 minutes away from securing the 2012 Six Nations title.

And scrum-half Phillips insists there is plenty more still to come from Warren Gatland’s side, and said that securing a fourth straight win was the only thing that mattered against the Italians.

“We would have taken four from four at the beginning of the Six Nations, and if we win next week, who is going to remember this game?” he said. “A win’s a win. We kept the ball rolling and that was key. We had a few turnovers and lost the ball in some good positions, so maybe we could have scored more.

“We need to retain the ball a bit better and that’s something we will have to work on for next week. We wanted to entertain the crowd, but at the end of the day we are now in the position we wanted to be.

“It keeps the momentum going and we will work hard this week for the big game.”

It wasn’t always one-way traffic for the hosts. Wales have averaged almost 40 points a time over their previous Six Nations meetings with the Azzurri in Cardiff and a repeat performance was expected by many this weekend.

But the Italians weren’t prepared to roll over so easily and put in a feisty performance in defence that kept their hosts tryless for 50 minutes, until centre Jamie Roberts finally found a chink in the visitors’ armour.

The visitors had made seven times more tackles than the men in red, but had no answer for a Welsh counter-attack inside their own 22. With Italy’s defence stretched, the ball was spun wide to Roberts who stepped inside Bergamasco for a clear run-in to the line.

Halfpenny added the extras but 10 minutes later found himself in the sin-bin after taking Italy skipper Sergio Parisse out in the air whilst following up his Garryowen. However, the Azzurri failed to take advantage of playing against 14 Welshmen and failed to add any points in Halfpenny’s absence. Instead, Wales managed to extend their lead through a Rhys Priestland penalty.

With three minutes left on the clock, the hosts sealed the deal with their second try of the match thanks to some brilliant finishing from wing Alex Cuthbert.

Scorers for Wales: Tries: Roberts, Cuthbert. Cons: Halfpenny. Pens: Halfpenny (three), Priestland.

Scorers for Italy: Pens: Bergamasco Yellow card: Halfpenny (61).

WALES: L Halfpenny, A Cuthbert, J Davies, J Roberts, G North, R Priestland, M Phillips; G Jenkins (c), M Rees, A Jones, AW Jones, I Evans, D Lydiate, J Tipuric, T Faletau.

Replacements: S. Williams for J. Davies (68), R Webb for Phillips (70), K Owens for Rees (62), P James for AW Jones (70), L Charteris for A Jones (62), R Jones for Faletau (65).

ITALY: A Masi, L McLean, G Canale, A Sgarbi, M Bergamasco, K Burton, F Semenzato; A Lo Cicero, L Ghiraldini, L Cittadini, Q Geldenhuys, C Van Zyl, S Favaro, S Parisse.

Replacements: G Toniolatti for Masi (71), T Benvenuti for Canale (66), T Botes for Semenzato (66), F Staibano for Cittadini (51), M Bortolami for van Zyl (51), R Barbieri for Favaro (62).

Referee: George Clancy (IRFU).