“It is important for us to focus on everything we do, we have to concentrate to make those eighty minutes on Saturday against Italy go very well for us,” he told the Western Mail. “We have got to train very well we have got to cross the ‘T’s and dot the ‘I’s on everything we do. It is going to take a good team performance to do well this weekend and I don’t think we should dwell on too many things that have happened in the past.
Charvis wore the skipper’s armband when Wales were infamously defeated by the Azzurri in Italy in 2003, and says that Italy are a stronger side now than they were then.
”Compared to when we have played them in previous tournaments, when you never really knew what kind of performance they are going to put in, they are now showing a level of consistency,” he said. “If you look at all three half time scores this season, there was nothing in it.”
“They were unfortunate to lose out in Ireland when there was a case for the video ref being called in for one of the Irish tries in their defeat. You have to give them credit for the consistency they are showing and the tenacity they are starting the games with. Admittedly, they have fallen off in the last say twenty or thirty minutes of the games, but they are now showing their true potential. If they translate that from one hour to eighty minutes, then it is going to take a very good side to beat them.”
Charvis knows that Wales at Home can be that side, but victory is not a ‘given’ as it once might have been against these opponents.
“I think we have got to perform to the best of our ability,” he said. “On the back of two defeats and one win so far this is a must win game for us. We have to perform very well. I am sure if we get the balance right between backs and forwards we can achieve our goal this weekend.”
