SCRUMHALF TITO Tebaldi admits Italy will do whatever it takes to beat Scotland in tomorrow’s Six Nations Championship Test, even if it means winning ugly.

The Stadio Flaminio is expected to be sold out with 33,000 fans in attendance.

“We need to be efficient,” said Tebaldi. “We must try to stop them from playing their style of game. Perhaps this may mean a less entertaining game for the fans, but so be it.”

Both sides go into the meeting with two defeats so far in the tournament.

Scotland head to Rome on the back of a heartbreaking loss to Wales a fortnight ago, while the Azzurri were edged out by England.

The Italians have gone nearly two years without a win in the Six Nations, with their last victory a 23-20 success at home against the Scots.

The Azzurri pushed England to the whistle in the last round before falling 17-12 in Rome.

“Against England we had the possibility to show more of our play than with respect to our opening defeat at Ireland,” said Tebaldi, a player at Gran Parma.

“We hope we can continue to improve in our performances and take another step with respect to our game against England.”

Nick Mallett’s men came into the tournament looking to improve after wooden-spoon performances in 2008 and 2009.

“We are not thinking about the wooden spoon,” said Tebaldi. “We will have to wait until the end of the tournament to see what happens. We just have to focus on giving a good performance to win this game.

“In order to beat Scotland, we will have to show the same heart as we did against England and have a bit more luck.”

Mallett has stuck with the same starting XV that lost to England, with Carlo Antonio Del Fava among the replacements having recovered from a knee injury.

Scotland’s win over Italy last year taught Alastair Kellock never to take his place in the team for granted.

Making his first Test start for two years, the secondrow left the pitch at Murrayfield having helped his country record their biggest ever Six Nations win against the Azzurri. But the following game, he found himself unceremoniously dropped for the returning Jim Hamilton.

It is fair to say Hamilton and Nathan Hines were former head coach Frank Hadden’s first-choice pairing, with Kellock doing well even to make the bench.

The contrast could hardly be greater under Andy Robinson, with the 28-year-old starting all five games since the former Edinburgh and England coach took charge.

But Kellock fears he is only one below-par performance away from being axed again.

“It makes you even more hungry, you realise how fragile it is,” Kellock said. “Every game that you don’t play is disappointing. It’s up to the coaching staff whether they select you.

“I did all I could last year to stay in the team, unfortunately, I didn’t get the nod.”

Kellock may not have got his opportunity under Robinson had Hamilton not been out injured for the autumn internationals. And he knows with Hines also now fit and Glasgow team-mate Richie Gray breaking through, there is now a genuine four-way fight for the jersey.

“We know how close it is and how much competition there is,” said Kellock, who insists the quartet all get on. “So we’ve got to make sure that we’re all playing well.”

Secondrow could be the key battleground tomorrow, with Italy’s lineout having failed to function in their defeats by Ireland and England. But Kellock – one of three players in the team yet to taste defeat against the Azzurri – believes it is as much about Scotland getting their setpiece right this weekend as disrupting their opponents’.

“Our own ball has to provide our backs with a good platform and then we’ve got to put as much pressure on them as possible,” he said. They’ve got a very, very good pack. And we know that it’ll be physical; we’ll be coming off the park knowing we’ve been in the game.”

ITALY (v Scotland, Stadio Flaminio, tomorrow, 1.30pm): L McLean; A Masi, G Canale, G Garcia, Mirco Bergamasco; C Gower, T Tebaldi; S Perugini, L Ghiraldini, M Castrogiovanni, Q Geldenhuys, M Bortolami, J Sole, Mauro Bergamasco, A Zanni. Replacements: F Ongaro, M Aguero, C Del Fava, P Derbyshire, P Canavosio, R Bocchino, K Robertson.