Saturday saw the first game of the 6 Nations taking place as defending grand slam champions Wales took on a Italian side desperate for a much needed victory.

Italy had not won a game in the 6 Nations for five years and had not beaten Wales in 13.

Wales as defending champions where clear favourites and with a new Head Coach in place there was a lot to prove to doubters, so a good start and more importantly a good performance was key.

The opening 5/10 mins saw some strong play by the Italians, forcing mistakes from the Welsh and with some strong ball carrying from the Italian back row they made some effective line breaks, forcing the Welsh to rely on their scramble defence.

Unfortunately we saw the Italy of old when using the backs, good forward play in the close quarters saw the game line broken multiple times early on, only for momentum to be halted by some very easy to read back play.

Simple hands down the line with little to no runners at pace made the attack very easy to defend.

The Italians where strong in defence for small parts of the game but in the end where ineffective in slowing down the ball and the Welsh where able to break them down with little effort.

The Welsh although starting slow out the blocks for the early parts of the first half managed to keep the Italians out and soon took control of the game. creating multiple opportunities to score which lead to the Italians committing a number of penalties at the break down.

Dan Bigger was good off the tee and pushed Wales into a good early lead. This gave Wales the upper hand and soon saw Josh Adams go over for his first try of the game midway though the first half.

From that point the writing was on the wall for the Italians as they got out muscled and out played though the rest of the game.

With Wales being able to break the Italians down more and more with less and less effort the flood gates opened and Wales run out comfortable winners 42-0.

So what does this result show for both teams?

Well Wales showed that they have the ability to score tries and to defend well when needed having kept the Italians of the score board. It was also a good chance for Dan Bigger to reclaim the starting 10 shirt, which i believe he did having shown some great all round game play.

Other strong performances from Josh Adams and new cap Joel Tompkins are only positives for the defending champions, but overall Wales played well against a poor Italian side and once the first 10 minutes was over Wales where not really tested again. It will be a much harder and tougher game next week, Wales will need to up their game to come out on top.

Italy well they had good patches of rugby where we saw a new type of game from the Italians, trying to put some width on play and trying to implement a more effective running game.

Some strong indivdual play from the likes of Jake Polledri and Alessandro Zanni saw some strong ball carrying in the forwards which was Italy's strongest area of the game.

But overall we saw a team struggle to match there opposition man for man around the field and in my opinion the Italian back line just to not have the quality to match other top international teams.

Their desire and passion is never in question but with only 1 or 2 really top players within the squad it is hard to see how they are going to be able to beat the other 5 teams.

This again throws into question weather Italy should remain in the tournament or should a opportunity be offered to another team in the Northern Hemisphere?

Italy need to up there game all round to have any chance of winning.