Mallett insists Azzurri are underdogs

Nick Mallett insists Italy will be the underdogs against Scotland tomorrow, despite winning two of the sides' last three meetings and going agonisingly close to making it a hat-trick.

The Azzurri have won back-to-back RBS 6 Nations games against tomorrow's opponents and were denied victory in the World Cup clash in between after David Bortolussi missed a last-gasp penalty.

Italy and Scotland are both winless in this season's Six Nations and will be viewing their clash at Murrayfield as a golden opportunity to kick-start their campaigns.

The bookies have Scotland as favourites to win, and visiting coach Mallett is clearly quite happy with his team carrying the outsider tag into the encounter.

'If you look at the way Scottish teams have played in the Heineken Cup, you see that Scotland have got better players at the moment,' he said.

'Glasgow beat Toulouse away, which was a really good result, and Edinburgh have played some really good rugby, while the Italian sides have been awful in the Heineken Cup.

'Scotland have been around this tournament for a hell of a lot longer than Italy.

'We've only been in it for 10 years and in that time we've had five wins and a draw. Scotland have had a hell of a lot more than that. So we'd be arrogant to say that we are at the same level as Scotland.

'But I think they are the one team that over the last three years Italy has managed to be competitive against.

'We managed to beat them in 2007 in that extraordinary game, we lost to them in the World Cup by a narrow 18-16 margin and we won with a drop-goal in the last minute last year.

'So all three of our most recent games have been very close and very tight, and I'd like to think we can be as competitive as that again tomorrow.

'If we don't make the mistakes that we made in the first two games - which were completely our fault, they weren't mistakes made under pressure - we can be much more competitive.'

Italy conceded 18 penalties against Ireland two weeks ago and Mallett believes that was a crucial factor in their 38-9 defeat in Rome.

He is confident there will not be a repeat performance tomorrow.

'Discipline is a really key area,' he said. 'Last year, we conceded the least penalties in the whole Six Nations, we were really well-disciplined.

'Against England, we only gave away seven penalties, so we look at that game (against Ireland) as a game apart, and I think the referee was influenced by the high tackle early on and got nervous about the game degenerating so penalised both Ireland and us a lot.

'The team had to go through a very tough video session after that game, where we pointed out all our problems, and each player has been made aware of the importance of being very disciplined on the field.

''We lost the game against Ireland quite simply because of our mistakes and absolutely ridiculous discipline.'