Navidi urges Wales to maintain momentum

Josh Navidi has urged Wales to keep their momentum going as they head towards a crunch Guinness Six Nations clash against England.

Wales face their fiercest rivals in 13 days’ time on the back of equalling a winning run that has stood for 109 years.

While Saturday’s 26-15 victory over Italy in Rome proved an often laboured stop-start affair, a much-changed Wales team ultimately got the job done.

Tries by wing Josh Adams and centre Owen Watkin, plus fly-half Dan Biggar’s accurate goalkicking, saw Wales post an 11th successive victory stretching back to last season’s tournament.

While England will pose an altogether tougher examination, Navidi and company know they can make history and stay on a Grand Slam course by winning at the Principality Stadium.

“The England game is going to get hyped up a lot, but we need to just focus on ourselves,” Wales number eight Navidi said.

“We were disappointed with the performance (against Italy), but a win is a win.

“We know that we have got a lot of things to work on to be prepared for England.

“We know where we are at, and now we’ve got a big couple of weeks to build into the England game. We need to improve and keep the momentum going.”

Wales head coach Warren Gatland made 10 changes for the Stadio Olimpico encounter, handing Six Nations debuts to Leicester wing Jonah Holmes and Wasps flanker Thomas Young, while scrumhalf Aled Davies and back-row forward Aaron Wainwright made first Six Nations starts.

And he has no doubt it was the right selection path to follow, having taken 31 players on last week’s training camp in Nice at the start of World Cup year.

Gatland said: “For us, there is a bigger picture that we were looking at for the first two games (against France and Italy).

“That was having the opportunity to get away for a week with a squad of 31 and replicating what might happen at the World Cup.

“If this was a normal year, on reflection, maybe we wouldn’t have made so many changes, but we wanted to give everyone in the 31 an opportunity to be involved in the first two games.”