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Italy make just 1 change for Saturday's Six Nations visit by England
By Online Editors
Franco Smith has made one change to his Italy XV for Saturday's Six Nations finale against England in Rome. The Italians were beaten 50-17 by Ireland last Saturday when they returned to championship action in Dublin.
Despite that heavy Six Nations loss, coach Smith has opted to kept changes to a minimum in the hope of building some Italy selection consistency. That means the only alteration to their starting side sees Matteo Minozzi take over for Jayden Hayward at full-back.
Minozzi missed last Saturday's round four championship match due to his start for Wasps in their Gallagher Premiership final defeat to Exeter at Twickenham.
There is also just one alteration on the bench, Guglielmo Palazzani coming in as back-up scrum-half in place of Gloucester's Callum Braley
“In Ireland, we saw flashes of our game and something positive, but we are aware that we have a lot of work ahead of us," said Smith. "We are a young team that wants to emerge. We continue on our way to build a precise identity."
ITALY (vs England, Saturday)
15 Matteo MINOZZI (Wasps, 19 caps)*
14 Edoardo PADOVANI (Benetton Rugby, 24 caps)*
13 Luca MORISI (Benetton Rugby, 33 caps)*
12 Carlo CANNA (Zebre Rugby Club, 27 caps)
11 Mattia BELLINI (Zebre Rugby Club, 26 caps)
10 Paolo GARBISI (Benetton Rugby, 1 cap)*
9 Marcello VIOLI (Zebre Rugby Club, 16 caps)*
8 Jake POLLEDRI (Gloucester Rugby, 17 caps)
7 Braam STEYN (Benetton Rugby, 40 caps)
6 Sebastian NEGRI (Benetton Rugby, 26 caps)
5 Niccolò CANNONE (Benetton Rugby, 4 caps)*
4 Marco LAZZARONI (Benetton Rugby, 7 caps)*
3 Giosuè ZILOCCHI (Zebre Rugby Club, 6 caps)*
2 Luca BIGI (Zebre Rugby Club, 28 caps) – capitano
1 Danilo FISCHETTI (Zebre Rugby Club, 4 caps)*
Replacements:
16 Gianmarco LUCCHESI (Benetton Rugby, 1 cap)*
17 Simone FERRARI (Benetton Rugby, 30 caps)*
18 Pietro CECCARELLI (Brive, 10 caps)*
19 David SISI (Zebre Rugby Club, 10 caps)
20 Johan MEYER (Zebre Rugby Club 5 caps)
21 Maxime MBANDA’ (Zebre Rugby Club, 21 caps)*
22 Guglielmo PALAZZANI (Zebre Rugby Club, 39 caps)
23 Federico MORI (Kawasaki Robot Calvisano, 1 cap)
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Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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