Scotland – Italy

Scotland and Italy will square off Saturday in the last round of the 2017 Six Nations. Scotland lost all chances for the title after being surprisingly demolished by England last weekend, but they can still finish as high as second and as low as fifth. Italy will finish last no matter what, after another poor tournament which is validating claims that they don`t deserve to be here.

Scotland had an excellent start to the tournament, confirming their progress, if anybody was still doubting it. They beat Ireland and Wales at home, losing a close game to France in Paris – a match in which a draw would have probably been the fair result. In great form and playing great rugby, Scotland traveled to England last week for a potential title decider at Twickenham. The Scots were confident despite some injuries, but a further couple injuries and a 2nd minute yellow card shattered their gameplan and execution. England won by 40 points in what was a sad day for Scottish rugby.

Italy started the tournament with two poor performances and big losses against Wales and Ireland, as expected, before shocking the world with a close game in England – which they lost by 21, but kept close for 70 minutes. However, that was because of a brilliant tactic employed by coach O’Shea, which allowed Italy to avoid the offside line, creating confusion and chaos. Unfortunately for them, that tactic was a one time use only. They tried to use it a little bit against France last weekend, but the French were ready for it and easily won by 22 in Rome.

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Team news & lineups:

Update: Richie Gray has also been ruled out for Scotland.

Scotland continues to deal with injuries to key players like captain Laidlawy, Strauss or Maitland. Additionally, a couple other guys got banged up against England. Italy will make 4 changes to the team that lost by 22 against France in Rome last week. They continue to deal with a few injuries, including to key players Ghiraldini and Allan.

Scotland: 15 Stuart Hogg, 14 Tommy Seymour, 13 Huw Jones, 12 Alex Dunbar, 11 Tim Visser, 10 Finn Russell, 9 Ali Price, 8 Ryan Wilson, 7 Hamish Watson, 6 John Barclay (c), 5 Jonny Gray, 4 Grant Gilchrist, 3 Zander Fagerson, 2 Ross Ford, 1 Gordon Reid

Italy: 15 Edoardo Padovani, 14 Angelo Esposito, 13 Tommaso Benvenuti, 12 Luke McLean, 11 Giovanbattista Venditti, 10 Carlo Canna, 9 Edoardo Gori, 8 Sergio Parisse (c), 7 Abraham Steyn, 6 Maxime Mata Mbanda’, 5 George Biagi, 4 Marco Fuser, 3 Lorenzo Cittadini, 2 Ornel Gega, 1 Andrea Lovotti

Scotland has usually been the team Italy felt they have a chance against in the 6 Nations and the Azzuri usually kept the game close, actually beating the Scots a few times. However, since Scotland’s recent improvement and Italy`s decline, the gap between the two teams became progressively and sensibly bigger and seems larger than ever right now. Scotland won 6 of the last 7 H2H meeting and dominated the last two: winning by 16 in Rome last year and by 41 at home two years ago.

Scotland will be desperate to diminish the shame of the horrible England defeat with a blowout of Italy. Captain Barclay suggested it himself, stating the loss against England still makes his teammates sick and that he expects a big response.

The Scots will try to win this by as many points as they can in order to redeem themselves in front of their fans and they will most likely not take a step back for the entire match. Also, Scotland knows that an offensive bonus point and a big win could send them as high as second in the final standings, which would be their best result since 1999, when it was still the Five Nations – so they have every reason to go for as many tries as possible and as big of a win as possible.

With the Scots looking for a large win and for tries, their speedy wide game will come in handy, it`s the perfect style to achieve such objectives. Scotland’s fast pace on the wings should create havoc in the Italian defense and give them 5-6 tries in this game.

Despite that ugly loss at Twickenham, Scotland has been great in this tournament and at home they beat both Wales and Ireland after brilliant performances. They do struggle with injuries, but that will not be as important against a weak Italy team (which also misses a couple of key guys). What`s more, they destroyed Wales at home despite dealing with injuries in that match as well.

A serious problem for Italy will be the fact that they will have to play on consecutive weekends. Italy`s inferior quality and lack of depth makes them always fade away late in games and produce poor performances on the second game of back to backs. They are just not able to produce two consistent performances for two weeks in a row, an often occurrence in rugby with teams that play superior opposition.

Italy`s record when they play twice in two weeks is dreadful in the second game. The only time matches were played in consecutive weekends this tournament, Italy lost by 53 points at home to Ireland, looking bewildered and exhausted.

Despite the injuries, Scotland should have enough to hand Italy a big beating at home. The Scots will be motivated to bounce back after the humiliation against England, they will try to score as much as possible and will not settle for just winning. With Italy`s poor quality and with them struggling on the second game of back to backs, I expect Scotland to win this by 25+ points.

My tip is Scotland to cover the 23,5 point handicap. Prediction: Scotland – Italy 41 – 11.

Pick: Scotland -23,5
Odds: 1.87 @ Unibet
Stake: 9
Possible profit: 7.83
Event date: 18 March