Italy – Scotland

Italy and Scotland square off in Rome in the third round of the Six Nations, with the loser likely to finish the tournament as the “Wooden Spoon”.

Italy played a great first round match in Paris against France, they barely lost by 2 points and in all honesty they probably deserved to win. However, the Italians went on to be embarrassed at home by England in a 9-40 blowout, showing their limits. This is probably the worst Italian teams in the last few years, as they suffered from retirements and injuries, along with the decline of club rugby. They played poorly in the World Cup and are definite favorites to finish last in the Six Nations.

Scotland is backing up all the talk about their improvement, as the team played some good rugby in the first two rounds, despite falling 9-15 to England and 23-27 to Wales. However, the Scots are not really as good as advertised. The team still has some way to go before competing with Giants like England and Wales, as they never really had a chance in those matches, even though the scores were tight. The scrum particularly needs an improvement. Fact is Scotland has not won a six Nations game in almost 750 days

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Team news & lineups:

Italy have made 4 changes in the starting lineup compared to the game against England. Odiete is back fit, but Canna is injured. Scotland will only make a change, as Visser comes back from injury.

Italy: 15 David Odiete, 14 Leonardo Sarto, 13 Michele Campagnaro, 12 Gonzalo Garcia, 11 Mattia Bellini, 10 Kelly Haimona, 9 Edoardo Gori, 8 Sergio Parisse (c), 7 Alessandro Zanni, 6 Francesco Minto, 5 Joshua Furno, 4 Marco Fuser, 3 Lorenzo Cittadini, 2 Leonardo Ghiraldini, 1 Andrea Lovotti

Scotland: 15 Stuart Hogg, 14 Tommy Seymour, 13 Mark Bennett, 12 Duncan Taylor, 11 Tim Visser, 10 Finn Russell, 9 Greig Laidlaw (c), 8 David Denton, 7 John Hardie, 6 John Barclay, 5 Jonny Gray, 4 Richie Gray, 3 Willem Nel, 2 Ross Ford, 1 Alasdair Dickinson

There were three Head 2 Head meetings last year and Scotland won the last two, but the only match that mattered was the one played in the Six Nations, which Italy won 22-19 on the road! 4 of the last 5 H2H games were decided by 4 points or less. In the Six Nations these meetings were always incredibly tough and Scotland never had it easy, even when they were big favorites, like it is the case today.

Listen, Scotland is on the rise and Italy is on a downtrend, but this will still be an extremely difficult match for the Scots, who are a bit overrated right now and definitely don`t deserve to have such low odds. Playing in Rome is a massive challenge for any team in the world, maybe except New Zealand, South Africa and England. The 40-9 win by England was not such a big disaster for Italy, considering how well England played and how strong they are right now.

At this point Italy doesn`t have what it takes to play two great games in a row, but they still have the heart and quality to play big matches from time to time. They proved it against Ireland in the World Cup and against France three weeks ago. They also beat Scotland last year, when the situation of the two teams were similar and they did it at Murrayfield.

The Scots are the favorites, they have a more complete team right now and have the ability to run the Italians on the wings, but with a brilliant Parisse and an effective scrum, Italy has what it takes to balance things out – especially as the match is played in Rome. Look for a close game, I expect it to be decided by a late penalty and either team can win it, though if I had to choose a side, I would choose Scotland because the Italian scrum may tire and commit a mistake in the last few minutes. My tip is Italy to cover the 6,5 handicap. Prediction: Italy – Scotland 16 – 18.

Pick: Italy +6,5
Odds: 1.93 @ Pinnacle
Stake: 8
Possible profit: 7.44
Event date: 27 February