Both sides hit the front multiple times throughout the match, but Shanelle Williams proved to be the hero thanks to her brace, despite electric play from Italian winger Mihaela Pirpiliu throughout.

Each of the teams had suffered heavy defeats in their Round 1 fixtures, but will be delighted with the attacking invention on display at the Stadio Walter Beltrametti.

The two sides engaged in a cagey first quarter although Hanna Tudor momentarily looked set to score after a brilliant line break, only to get hauled down a few metres short.

It was Wales who eventually opened the scoring in the 26th minute, when Williams followed in her own lineout five metres out to crash over from the resulting driving maul.

Within three minutes Wales had extended their lead. Patient build-up allowed Aimee Bush to charge towards the corner down the right wing, but she looked to have just been ushered into touch as she grounded the ball.

Instead, a video review revealed she had successfully grounded the ball despite Pirpiliu’s high tackle, which gave Wales a 12-0 lead.

But remarkably it was Italy who led at half-time. Pirpiliu slalomed past two Welsh defenders before finding Sofia Catellani on the left wing, who burned past Freya Bell and into the in-goal area.

Then Pirpiliu added a second try herself, collecting Greta Copat’s pass to dance through the Welsh defence down the left wing, which allowed Vittoria Zeni to quickly make amends for a poor first conversion attempt by levelling the scores at 12-12.

Zeni added three moet points on the stroke of half-time when Matilde Cecati drew a penalty from a scrambling Welsh defence after an electric line break.

The frantic action continued in the second half. Alaw Pyrs’ sumptuous dummy left two Italians on the deck, before she drew a third and offloaded to Willliams who dotted down for her second score of the day and put Wales in the lead again.

But that lead lasted only until Catellani hared onto a low pass and seared towards the try line and bring the scoreline 22-19 in Italy’s favour.

Despite Italy’s fleet-footed attacks, it was Welsh power that proved their undoing, as they repeated their trick from the first half, heaving a maul over the line from a lineout - Lily Terry the one to get the acclaim this time.

In the 68th minute, Wales finally engineered some daylight on the scoreboard through Gwennan Hopkins’ industry from another maul.

Copat rushed onto a hopeful offload to score Italy’s fourth try to slash the deficit as they doggedly penned Wales in their own territory, but the visitors resisted suffocating pressure late on to take the win.