Italy pushed England all the way in the first round of the Guinness Men’s Six Nations and will face Ireland, the team they last beat in 2013, on Sunday.
A serious injury to Sebastian Negri means the Azzurri will be sidelined with Alessandro Izecole, who came on from the bench last week to cement his place in the starting XI for the remainder of the Championship.
Stephen Varney will start this week, rekindling his partnership with Paolo Garbisi at fly-half.superstar ange Capozzo will wear the number 15 shirt and aim to energize the backline and put pressure on the Irish defence.
italian team
1 Danilo Fischetti (Zebre Parma, 37 caps) 2 Gianmarco Lucchesi (Benetton Rugby, 18 caps) 3 Pietro Ceccarelli (Perpignan, 32 caps) 4 Niccolo Canone (Benetton Rugby, 37 caps) 5 Federico Luzza (Benetton Rugby, 50 caps) 6 Alessandro Izecole (Benetton Rugby, 1 cap) 7 Manuel Zuliani (Benetton Rugby, 18 caps) 8 Michele Ramaro (Benetton Rugby, 34 caps) (C)
9 Stephen Varney (Gloucester, 25 caps) 10 Paolo Garbisi (Montpellier, 32 caps) 11 Monty Ioane (Lioné, 26 caps) 12 Tommaso Menoncello (Benetton Rugby, 13 caps) 13 Juan Ignacio Brex (Benetton Rugby, 13 caps) Rugby, 31 caps) 14 Lorenzo Pani (Zebre Parma, 6 caps) 15 Ange Capozzo (Stade Toulousain, 16 caps)
replacement
16 Giacomo Nicotera (Benetton Rugby, 19 caps) 17 Mirco Spagnuolo (Benetton Rugby, 1 cap) 18 Giosue Girocchi (Benetton Rugby, 17 caps) 19 Andrea Zambonin (Zebre Parma, 4 caps) 20 Ross・Vincent (Exeter, Esordiente) 21 Martinpage Lello (Lioné, 4 caps) 22 Tommaso Allan (Perpignan, 80 caps) 23 Federico Mori (Bayonne, 14 caps)