27th April has been circled for weeks on the Azzurre calendar.
The Championship will ube decided in Bordeaux this afternoon with Le Crunch, but there will also be an important moment for Italy.
After Sara Barattin, who ended her international career last year against Wales in Parma with 116 caps, there will be a second Italian athlete destined to cross the historic milestone of 100 national team appearances: Lucia Gai.
The figure is even more important if you consider the fact that, in total - also factoring in the men - she will be only the tenth player to reach three figures. On the men's side there are Alessandro Troncon, Andrea Lo Cicero, Martin Castrogiovanni, Marco Bortolami, Sergio Parisse, Mauro Bergamasco, Alessandro Zanni and Leonardo Ghiraldini: all iconic names in the Italian game, and a list to which Gai will soon be added as only the second female.
Naturally, the Valsugana prop downplayed the occasion. "I'm not thinking about it much. In fact, as little as possible and I try to stay focused on the game, although obviously I'm happy and it's proof that many sacrifices lead to results and so it's nice to get there.
"Maybe the others are thinking about it more: I've already received many messages of congratulations and good luck. I'm not used to it..."
She made her debut in an Italy side coached by the Ermolli-Granatelli duo in 2009 in Sweden in the European Cup, cap number 134. Even then it seemed predestined.
"I was called up at the last moment and they almost didn't know what role to play me in and I think I ended up in the second line for almost all the matches," she recalls. "I was 18 years old and I was still in grade four. By the way, I also had a broken finger on my hand, but I didn't say anything: when you get called up to the national team, you certainly don't miss an opportunity like that."
A long and eventful career has followed, both for club and country.
Her social media profile pictures include her beautiful dog, Pepita, a present for her thirtieth birthday. Pepita always cries whenever she has to leave home.
Unfortunately, her family won't be with her to rejoice in Cardiff, but "how cool to be able to make a hundred appearances [at the Principality Stadium]", she says proudly. It was with her parents and brother that she shared a passion for rugby. Born in Pesaro, a town on Italy's Adriatic Coast, Gai moved to Riviera, another coastal area. As well as winning a total of six championships in Italian club rugby - shared between Riviera and Valsugana - she spent an invaluable year playing in France for Rennes.
Gai says: "Mama Roberta played rugby and so did my brother Rodolfo, who in addition to Pesaro also had played at Parma. But it was above all my dad Francesco who influenced me. He was a back rower and played until he was over forty, and then he was a handyman at the club, so he always took me there and, a bit like all rugby players' sons, I grew up at the club.
"Our parents had to keep us constantly busy, so we did scouts, two sports each and I changed one every year, in addition to rugby, from skating to volleyball, through basketball and swimming.
"At the beginning I also played as a centre, then mainly second and back row, while in the national team Andrea Di Giandomenico had already deployed me as a prop. It wasn't a role I played in the league so it took me a while before I was able to feature there in the various clubs as well.
‘It was difficult to play in the front row only for the national team and not being used to it, while playing other positions at club level. Being a prop is a technical job and it set me back not being able to do it properly during that year, but little by little I managed it."
After 15 years as an international player, the memories are plentiful.
"The best year was 2019, when we came second, winning the last game in Padua against France with four tries: it was a crazy feeling and the most satisfying moment," she says. "I'd had an ankle injury during the week and it was significant. I was resting the whole time, I almost didn't warm up and then I ended up being the only front row player on the pitch who played the whole eighty minutes."
In Wales, Italy will play to avoid last place against a team in search of their first win of the year - and with third place still up for grabs, waiting to see what will happen in Belfast between Ireland and Scotland.
"Maybe it will be difficult to get into the top three. Wales haven't done very well so far, but they are at home," she reasons. "We will have to stay focused and try to take them on. The problems I have with my shoulder this year have not allowed me to get a lot of minutes, but it's fine to start from the bench and it's right that the good young players we have are given time to develop. I feel a little bit like a mother hen towards them, even if sometimes, in their eyes, I may seem strict, but it is necessary every now and then."
It's been a hard-fought Championship for most teams, says Gai: "There have been unexpected victories. Even for us there was that surprising loss to Scotland. In this competition you can never predict anything, you simply have to take each match as it comes."
What is it that Italy need to return to reach the heights of, say, 2019?
"In the scrum, which is the area I'm most focused on, I would say that we are doing quite well and we never underestimate the opponent. When we make mistakes, perhaps it's because we don't get off on the right foot and then we struggle to recover. I think, for example, in Paris against France we started underperforming and then it was difficult to recover in the second half."
Rewinding the tape of a long and extraordinary career, who was the most difficult opponent to face? "The very strong Sarah Bern comes to mind: a front rower as powerful as a back rower and as fast as a winger. Outstanding."
Centurions are rare. At international level, apart from the aforementioned Barattin, there are only six English players (the most recent being Marlie Packer against Italy in this year's Guinness Women's Six Nations), one Scottish and one Welsh. In short, Lucia Gai is in a sisterhood of ten.
It should also not be forgotten that professionalism in the women's game is at an embryonic stage, with considerable past efforts and sacrifices required to reconcile a player's passion for sport, family and work.
"Rugby has changed a lot in recent years, it has evolved and it is probably a whole different thing compared to when I started," reflects Gai. "Reaching 100 caps is worth a lot to me, not least because once upon a time you didn't play that many international fixtures. At most you would play in the Six Nations and the European Cup, while some friendlies went uncapped. Now maybe the girls will have more opportunities and will be able to reach this milestone faster."
There will be plenty to celebrate this Super Saturday.
"It goes hand in hand with the fact that it's also the last day of the Championship, so we'll be celebrating anyway. In the meantime, I've already had to pay centurion fee into our fines kitty!"
