Wales fly-half Rhys Priestland will put his disappointing showing against England behind him according to a Lions legend.
Priestland had a poor day at the office in his country’s Triple Crown winning clash with England at Twickenham as he came in for his first real bout of criticism since making his international debut at the same venue last August.
The 25-year-old, who is already being talked about as a likely Lion in 2013, turned over possession on two occasions as he attempted to run from deep, gave away a kickable penalty and spent 10 minutes in the sin bin for killing the ball after seeing an attempted clearance charged down by Mouritz Botha.
But Wales kicking coach Neil Jenkins, who booted Britain and Ireland’s to glory in 1997, is convinced the Scarlets playmaker will bounce back against Italy and France by recapturing the form that made him one of the most talked about players at the recent World Cup.
"We have had a chat with Rhys. We had a talk briefly after the game and we also had a chat on Monday and Tuesday," said Jenkins.
"It hasn't gone his way on the day but we have all been there. We have all had games where things don't go to plan but the pleasing thing I think from Rhys' point of view was that he kept going. I think in that last quarter of an hour he has dug in and come through it.
"I thought in the last quarter of an hour he was excellent, he kept us going forward and I think that was decisive in us winning the game towards the end.
"There were a couple of issues where he could have kicked and we decided to run and we could have kicked a lot more ball in the first half than we did.
"But he is quite new to the Test arena, he has been involved for more or less a year and it will be a learning curve for him.
"I am sure he will be back to his best when we face Italy."
