Italy push England all the way in round one of the Guinness Men's Six Nations, and on Sunday will take on a team they last beat in 2013, Ireland.
With a key injury to Sebastian Negri the Azzurri have brought in Alessandro Izekor from last week's bench who will be out to solidify a place in the starting team for the rest of the Championship.
Stephen Varney starts this week, re-igniting the partnership with Paolo Garbisi at flyhalf. Superstar Ange Capuozzo steps into the 15 jersey and will look to ignite the backline and put the Irish defence under pressure.
Italy Team
1 Danilo Fischetti (Zebre Parma, 37 caps) 2 Gianmarco Lucchesi (Benetton Rugby, 18 caps) 3 Pietro Ceccarelli (Perpignan, 32 caps) 4 Niccolò Cannone (Benetton Rugby, 37 caps) 5 Federico Ruzza (Benetton Rugby, 50 caps) 6 Alessandro Izekor (Benetton Rugby, 1 cap) 7 Manuel Zuliani (Benetton Rugby, 18 caps) 8 Michele Lamaro (Benetton Rugby, 34 caps) (C)
9 Stephen Varney (Gloucester, 25 caps) 10 Paolo Garbisi (Montpellier, 32 caps) 11 Monty Ioane (Lione 26 caps) 12 Tommaso Menoncello (Benetton Rugby, 13 caps) 13 Juan Ignacio Brex (Benetton Rugby, 31 caps) 14 Lorenzo Pani (Zebre Parma, 6 caps) 15 Ange Capuozzo (Stade Toulousain, 16 caps)
Replacements
16 Giacomo Nicotera (Benetton Rugby, 19 caps) 17 Mirco Spagnolo (Benetton Rugby, 1 cap) 18 Giosuè Zilocchi (Benetton Rugby, 17 caps) 19 Andrea Zambonin (Zebre Parma, 4 caps) 20 Ross Vintcent (Exeter, esordiente) 21 Martin Page-Relo (Lione, 4 caps) 22 Tommaso Allan (Perpignan, 80 caps) 23 Federico Mori (Bayonne, 14 caps)
