The home side stuttered to a 13-8 half-time lead at the Millennium Stadium but scored 34 unanswered points after the break to stay on course for a second clean sweep in four years.

Saturday’s result banished memories of a defeat and a draw against the Azzurri over the past two seasons and Edwards is now looking forward to the crucial clash in Ireland in two weeks’ time.

“All roads lead to Dublin,” he proclaimed.

For head coach Warren Gatland, the manner and the size of the victory will be important to Wales as they move into the business end of the championship.

He said: “The biggest thing to today were the points we scored because the championship could come down to points difference and we put a message on with 10 minutes to go to try to score as many points as we could.

“Even if we lose to Ireland, it could come down to points difference in the final game against France. We are very mindful of that.

“I was always confident that we could win by 40 points, especially considering how sharp the players were in training yesterday.

“They are starting to understand the type of game we want to play.”

Wales led 6-0 through two Stephen Jones penalties but were shocked when Martin Castrogiovanni crossed for the game’s opening try.

Lee Byrne went over for the first of his two touchdowns to ensure the home side would go into the break ahead though Andrea Marcato’s penalty kept the visitors in touch.

Wales were rampant after the restart, Tom Shanklin, man-of-the-match Byrne and Shane Williams (two) all touching down, while Jones finished with 18 points before being replaced by James Hook.

Gatland believes he is in a good position as a coach with regards the quality of his half-backs.

He said: “Mike Phillips came on and made a real impact. I thought Stephen Jones had a pretty good game and having someone like James Hook to come on and keep the tempo on is good as well.

“There is a lot of debate about the half-backs in Wales but I think that debate is healthy.”

Skipper Ryan Jones said: “We are building a belief in the squad and we believed we could beat Italy. We won because we worked bloody hard for 60 minutes.

“We have got the atmosphere in the squad and the mentality we can win.

“We have still got a way to go but we are building confidence.”

As defence coach, Edwards was more than satisfied with Wales’ performance without the ball.

He said: “We only missed three tackles all game and the Italy try came from an interception at a line-out. The most pleasing thing for me was the defensive side of our game.”