Italy have been fast starters in this year’s Championship and against England and Wales they kept pace until well after half-time before slipping away to lose 19-15 to the Red Rose and 24-3 to the Red Dragons.

Gori, who has 12 caps, knows that against Scotland at the Stadio Olimpico a good first half matters for nothing if they don’t maintain intensity until the final whistle.

“On Saturday the second half will be the key and we must be at the top of our game in that period,” he said.

“We’ve been recovering well from the Wales match and training hard this week because this must be our best game.  

“This is the last game of the 6 Nations and we must play to our maximum.

“We’ve lost all our games so far so we have to show something to the fans as well as to ourselves.

“The England loss cuts me up the most the must. We could have done that without a doubt and the Ireland game as well because of the way we lost.

“The best way to approach it is to put them under pressure and get points on the board quickly, when they’re under pressure we then need to put them in a corner and leave them there.

“At the beginning of the 6 Nations and we had our eyes on this game and we’ll see how it goes on Saturday.”