For the second week running an amateur forced his way onto the leaderboard in the third round of a European Tour event.

Last Saturday it was England's Danny Willett with a 64 that helped him to finish 10th in the Spanish Open and today at the Italian Open in Milan it was home player Federico Colombo.

Having survived the halfway cut with one shot to spare at five under Colombo set off again with an eagle three, turned in 32 and with birdies on the 12th, 13th and 15th reached 12 under and joint fourth place.

On the low scoring Castello di Tolcinasco course it gave him a chance to achieve the best 72-hole total by an amateur in Tour history, the 17 under of Pablo Martin in the 2003 Spanish Open.

Colombo was only three behind overnight leader Robert Karlsson, but the Swede, round in a course record 61 yesterday, and his nearest 36-hole challengers had still to resume.

A crack of dawn start appeared to suit John Daly as he returned a 68 to improve to eight under.

The former Open champion, now a lowly 609th in the world, had made it through the halfway cut with nothing to spare.

But, teeing off again just after 7am, he had four birdies in his first five holes and had to be disappointed not to make further inroads.

It was only the third time in 12 starts this season that the 42-year-old American had been involved in weekend action and he said: "I played pretty solid except for a couple of holes on the back nine when I got a bit loose.

"We were first out and got round pretty fast, which suits me fine. But I'll be out a bit later tomorrow, so I can get a bit more sleep."

Karlsson led by two from England's Mark Foster and South African Hennie Otto.