Head coach Gonzalo Quesada makes one tweak to the Italy lineup for Saturday’s Six Nations clash with Wales, which may well decide who ends up with the wooden spoon.
The Italians host the Welsh in Rome and Quesada has, aside from replacing Dino Lamb with fellow lock Niccolo Cannone, kept faith with the XV which started last week’s opening 31-19 defeat to Scotland at Murrayfield.
Lamb’s demotion to the bench may be in response to the failure of the Italy pack to get the better of the Scots at the breakdown, which prevented their sparkling backs to test their opponents’ defence.
TEAM: Hapless Wales get veteran boost
Italy, who beat the Welsh last year in Cardiff, face a side who are on an unwanted record run of 13 successive Test defeats.
The Welsh began this year’s Six Nations with an abject 43-0 thrashing by France in Paris.
Italy enjoyed their best Six Nations results last year with two wins and a draw to finish fifth, one spot above Wales, as they avoided the wooden spoon for the first time since 2015.
ITALY – 15 Tommaso Allan, 14 Ange Capuozzo, 13 Juan Ignacio Brex, 12 Tommaso Menoncello, 11 Monty Ioane, 10 Paolo Garbisi, 9 Martin Page-Relo, 8 Lorenzo Cannone, 7 Michele Lamaro (c), 6 Sebastian Negri, 5 Federico Ruzza, 4 Niccolo Cannone, 3 Simone Ferrari, 2 Giacomo Nicotera, 1 Danilo Fischetti.
Bench: 16 Gianmarco Lucchesi, 17 Luca Rizzoli, 18 Marco Riccioni, 19 Dino Lamb, 20 Manuel Zuliani, 21 Ross Vintcent, 22 Alessandro Garbisi, 23 Jacopo Trulla.
Six Nations round 2 fixtures
Saturday:
Italy v Wales, 4.15pm (Stadio Olimpico)
England v France, 6.45pm (Twickenham)
Sunday:
Scotland v Ireland, 5pm (Murrayfield)
Photo: Stu Forster/Getty Images
