Louis Rees-Zammit believes Wales fans starting to get something to excite them

Phil Blanche, Press Association

Louis Rees-Zammit feels Wales fans have something to finally get excited about, even though their side are set to finish bottom of the Guinness Six Nations again.

Wales’ 27-17 defeat to Ireland on Friday was their 15th successive Six Nations loss – the worst run of any country other than Italy, who hold the unenviable record of a 36-match losing streak between 2015 and 2022.

But Wales were within one score of Ireland until the 76th minute, and another positive performance in Dublin came on the back of narrow home defeat to Scotland.

Rees-Zammit said: “In the first two games, there was nothing really to get behind. We weren’t very good at all, both attacking-wise and defensively.

“It’s hard for the crowd to get involved when we’re not playing very well and we’re letting in tries for fun early on in the game.

“But I think we should have won the past two games against two very good outfits in Scotland and Ireland, who have been together for a long, long time.

“We’re just building, and I said after the France game we’ve just got to start trusting each other.

“We’ve really started to do that the past two games. That’s why we’ve been able to put performances on that have been exciting, not for just us playing but people watching as well.”

Wales – who have not won a Six Nations match since beating Italy in March 2023 – are almost certain to finish bottom of the table for a third successive year.

They can only avoid bottom spot by beating Italy with a bonus point and England losing to France.

There also has to be an improbable 100-point swing between Wales and England.

Italy will arrive in Cardiff having beaten Scotland and England and could win three games in the same Six Nations Championship for the first time.

“It’s going to be good being at home again for the final game,” said Rees-Zammit.

“We will try and get the crowd into the game early on.

“In the first two games we let in tries within the first three or four minutes, so it’s pretty hard for fans to get into the game after that.”

Rees-Zammit has not added to his 16 Test tries since being switched from wing to full-back at the start of the tournament.

By contrast, Rhys Carre became only the sixth starting prop to score tries in three successive Tests with an astonishing effort from 30 metres in Dublin.

“All credit to Carre we’ve seen him do things like that in training, but to score like that in a game was unbelievable,” said Rees-Zammit.

“But we can’t rely on him doing it every game.”

Aaron Wainwright is set to play against Italy, despite assistant coach Dan Lydiate saying the number eight was “banged up” after the Ireland game.

Fly-half Sam Costelow is still not training fully after the ankle injury suffered against Scotland, but has not been ruled out.