WALES V ITALY (Tomorrow KO 2.30)

RHYS Priestland has vowed to put his Twickenham horror show behind him this weekend and repay Wales coach Warren Galtand’s faith in him.

The Scarlets outside-half starts for Italy’s visit to the Millennium Stadium tomorrow despite his nightmarish day during the Triple Crown triumph against England a fortnight ago.

Priestland was yellow carded in the 44th minute of that game for being offside after his attempted clearance kick was charged down by Mauritz Botha.

His sin binning was the low point of a performance that saw him miss touch with his line kicking and also get caught in possession to put Wales under serious pressure more than once.

Fortunately for Priestland, however, the team seemed to play better when down to 14 men and the outside-half had an accomplished last 20 minutes as they snatched a 19-12 victory from the jaws of defeat. “I was pretty disappointed to be honest,” he admitted after being asked about how he felt following the game.

“Things didn’t go my way, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. I’m not really going to dwell on it. I’m just lucky to be having another chance on the weekend and hopefully make a better job of it.

“Every time I’m selected, I’m over the moon. I’m just really pleased that the coaches have shown faith in me again.”

The 25-year-old Priestland added how Gatland and his coaching staff just told him to try to learn from the experience.

“Straight after the game the coaches could see I was a little bit disappointed and they came up to speak to me,” he revealed.

“They said, ‘Oh, don’t worry about it. As long as you learn from it’.

“I’ve looked back at the game and there were a few things I wish I had done differently and I wish a few things had gone a different way.

“I’ll look back on it and hopefully I’ve learnt a lot and hopefully it will make me a better player.”

And for Priestland, who gets his 14th cap tomorrow, winning ugly can be the hallmark of an accomplished side.

“I don’t think that game against England was our best performance, for various reasons,” he said.

“People always speak about teams who don’t play well and win and that it’s usually the sign of a good team.

“I’m sure we’ll play better than that and lose in the future.

“And at the end of the day we came away with the Triple Crown.

“The first one I’ve been involved in and I’m over the moon. But there are aspects for me to work on and I have been working hard on them over the last two weeks.”

Looking ahead to tomorrow’s clash, Priestland anticipates a tough encounter and stressed Wales must be at the top of their game against the Azzurri who are without a win in this season’s Six Nations.

“It’ll be the first time for me playing against Italy,” he said. “They have got some quality players throughout the team and they can make life very difficult for you. They’ve got big, physical players.

“And hopefully we can be at our best and really be clinical.

“They are a big threat, so we’ve got to be at the top of our game and not give them a sniff.”