Italy vs Uruguay
Uruguay (+25.5)
Italy can keep the pressure on France and New Zealand by beating Uruguay early on Thursday morning.
As expected, the Italians proved to be far too strong for Namibia in their World Cup opener on September 9th, running away 52-8 victors. I’m confident they’ll take improvement for that hit-out, but there’s also little doubt they face a strong opponent this week.
Uruguay were set the enormous task of taking on home nation France first-up last week, but they laid an extremely good account for themselves in the 27-12 loss. France did rest players, but Uruguay certainly exceeded expectations, and they’ll be quietly confident in another competitive effort here.