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Italy make three changes for France encounter
By Peter Thompson
Andrea Lovotti, Leonardo Ghiraldini and Maxime Mbanda have been included in Italy's starting line-up for the Six Nations clash with France on Friday.
Prop Lovotti and hooker Ghiraldini dropped to the bench for the thumping at the hands of Ireland last time out, but come back into the side in Marseille at the expense of Nicola Quaglio and Luca Bigi.
Conor O'Shea has also selected flanker Mbanda, who was named among the replacements in Dublin but gets his chance from the start at Stade Velodrome.
South Africa-born back-row Braam Steyn drops out of the squad after starting the 56-19 drubbing at the Aviva Stadium.
The Azzurri and France have both lost their first two matches of the tournament.
Italy: Matteo Minozzi, Tommaso Benvenuti, Tommaso Boni, Tommaso Castello, Mattia Bellini, Tommaso Allan, Marcello Violi; Andrea Lovotti, Leonardo Ghiraldini, Simone Ferrari, Alessandro Zanni, Dean Budd, Sebastian Negri, Maxime Mbanda, Sergio Parisse.
Replacements: Luca Bigi, Nicola Quaglio, Tiziano Pasquali, George Fabio Biagi, Federico Ruzza, Edoardo Gori, Carlo Canna, Jayden Hayward.
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Latest Comments
Look there are a few unarguable facts here that are very clear. SARU was close to bankruptcy with SR, bailed out by the Lions and they need the URC and EPCR. Inclusion of SA teams in URC has been a great for for ALL concerned, from a rugby perspective and financially, moreover there is massive growth yet to come. The GP is in financial trouble and this will be the catalyst for EPCR change to further cement the Boks.
If this all plays out with even greater rewards for the urc AND the Top14 & GP via EPCR, the 6N will become 7N. Nz and Aus NEED to get their version firing with Japan & the PI’s, otherwise they will find themselves increasingly regressing…
Go to commentsPerofeta came back and was available for the eoyt right? Or was that why Love was in the squad (but got injured in the last week)?
It was such a frustrating year. Perofeta looked a service stop gap until Jordan was fit, but then got injured. Plummer was selected because of Pero's injury and dmac shat the bed in the second half in Australia but Clarke (?) got himself binned at the 65 min mark so Plummer couldn't come on (at least with the risk adverse Razors thinking) when he was planned to.
So many other exciting opportunities that could have happened without injuries, but then theyre probably balanced by knowing Sititi probably wouldn't have been given a chance without multiple injuries happened.
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