Jamie warns Wooden Spoon side are hungry for first scalp

BY STUART BATHGATE had six days rather than the usual seven between matches.

Edinburgh flanker Ritchie is aware that this is the game Italy have targeted ever since they won the first-ever Six Nations fixture between the countries back in 2000.

And he reckons it is vital Scotland dampen their hopes by getting off to a good start – something they utterly failed to do against the Irish.

He said: “Italy always target the game against us as a big one, so I think they’ll be coming out all guns blazing.

“They’re always a threat, so for us it’s a massive chance to show we can get out in front earlier and hopefully that will lead to a win.

“With it being a short turnaround we haven’t got as much time to prepare for what they’re coming with. But our foundations are in place to build upon and that’ll be the most important thing come the weekend. “I don’t think the fact they’ve had a certain amount of points scored against them creates any pressure for us. The only pressure that will come from that is they’ll be looking to get something out of this tournament. “So they’ll see this game as an opportunity to come at us. That is the only pressure that will come from the situation. We’ll just be looking to win the game, as we do every week.

“We’ve still got two games left, so there’s nothing to say we can’t finish at the higher end of the table.

“Yeah, we’ve had a couple of close results but we’ve still taken a couple of bonus points from those games.

“If we win these next two games, that could be vital. There’s no reason why we can’t get back on track.”

If Scotland follow up a win over Italy with another next weekend in their final game against France in Paris, that will make it three wins out of five matches following the historic win at Twickenham that kicked things off.

That could be good enough to take them up to third in the final table, and would go down as one of their better displays in the championship, at least judged by statistics.

But after the high hopes that followed the victory over England on the opening weekend, Ritchie believes a three-out-of-five win record has to be seen as an underachievement – especially given the ability of the squad.

He added: “It will still be a missed opportunity in the last two games. But you can’t look back, you can only look forward. These games are gone, you can’t get them back now. So it’s on to the next two.”