George North recalled at unfamiliar outside centre as Wayne Pivac names Wales team to face Italy early

Wales have handed a start at outside centre to George North for Saturday's Test against Italy in Llanelli having named their side a day earlier than scheduled, with the veteran recalled after being released from the national squad following Wales' loss to Ireland.

Saturday will be North's sixth Test start for Wales on his 98th cap, having won three of his previous five Tests starting in midfield, scoring two tries. First-choice outside centre Jonathan Davies was fit and available for selection after missing the games against Georgia and England, but Pivac admitted that "this is the time to get answers" regarding the depth behind Davies.

North was previously released back to the Ospreys to build up his match sharpness.

"He had the misfortune of a red card coming out of lockdown so he’s just played no rugby. It’s your reaction time off the ball and little things like that which weren’t happening for him," Pivac explained.

"At the moment he is quite hungry after being in club land for the past couple of weeks. We feel it is a good opportunity to give him a run there as we did at the start of the Six Nations. In training he has looked very good at 13 so we'll see how he goes. At 13 we think we’ll get him on the ball early in that midfield area with his power and strength."

Alun Wyn Jones will captain a side featuring several new faces who have made their Test debuts throughout the autumn, with Sam Parry, James Botham, Kieran Hardy, Callum Sheedy, Louis Rees-Zammit, Johnny Williams and Ioan Lloyd all set to add to their Test caps. All of that group apart from Lloyd, who impressed for Bristol in the Gallagher Premiership last weekend, have been named in the starting XV against Italy.

Summing up a testing first year in charge in which Wales have lost seven out of nine Tests, Pivac admitted it had been a frustrating start to his tenure.

"The players have been frustrated because it hasn’t been through a want of trying, or a lack of rolling the sleeves up behind the scenes as that has been going on. It’s been a combination of reasons – we can see things slowly building behind the scenes. The selection group remains confident in what we’re doing. A good result at the weekend sets up nicely for a headache when it comes to selecting the Six Nations squad."

Wales were unhappy with decisions made at the scrum by referee Romain Poite against England, particularly two penalties against Samson Lee, with Pivac revealing they expect to receive feedback from World Rugby on Thursday.

"If we're in agreement, then we won't need to change that much. If the referees feel that some of the things we're doing are incorrect we will have to look at making a change," Pivac said.

• The interaction between referee and TMO was mixed, but Romain Poite managed the scrums beautifully

"At the moment we are trying to be positive, to paint good pictures. The example we give is that if a loosehead's feet are right back and he's flat as a pancake and clearly slipped, then that is not the fault of the tighthead. That happened on one occasion where Samson [Lee] was penalised. There was another time where Samson was flat as a pancake and so was Kyle Sinckler. It's just about consistency really."

One continued absence in the Wales pack is Josh Navidi, with the Cardiff Blues flanker still working his way back from a concussion sustained at the start of October.

Pivac added: "He has been able to train the last three weeks, but at the latter part of weeks he has not felt 100 per cent and we have not put him through full contact. Hopefully he will be playing in a week or two."