David Cornwall

Yet at least Howells will have a strong Welsh ally in his camp - former Newport centre David Cornwall.

A try scorer in the Black and Ambers' famous victory over the 1969 Springboks, Cornwall got so upset with the Welsh rugby selectors at not being given a chance at international level that he packed his bags and headed to Italy just as he was entering his prime at the age of 24.

"The Welsh selectors had continually turned a blind eye to my performances and I just felt it was time to move on," said Cornwall, who has been the team manager at Brescia and Leonessa for the past four years.
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Now 57, Cornwall runs a couple of restaurants, exports Italian bathroomware to the UK and also does business in the United States.

His 33-year stint in Italy has seen him become one of the most respected rugby figures in the town - a man who is still revered as the player-coach of the only Brescia team to win the Italian title.

"That was back in the 1974/75 season and it remains the only time Brescia won the Italian championship," said Cornwall.

"We took the second division title two years earlier and were runners-up on two other occasions while I was playing."

Cornwall blazed the trail for many other Welsh players who headed to Italy in the seventies, many of them joining him in Brescia.
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"Lynn will find there is a strong rugby culture in and around Brescia, which is an industrial town not too dissimilar to that which he will have been used to in the Welsh valleys," added Cornwall.