Italy coach makes one big change for Wales clash

TEAM ANNOUNCEMENT: Italy coach Gonzalo Quesada made one change to his team on Thursday for this weekend’s Six Nations clash with Wales in Rome which may well decide who ends up with the wooden spoon.

The Italians host the Welsh on Saturday and Quesada has, aside from replacing Dino Lamb with fellow lock Niccolo Cannone, kept faith with the XV which started last weekend’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.

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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 (captain), 6 Sebastian Negri, 5 Federico Ruzza, 4 Niccolo Cannone, 3 Simone Ferrari, 2 Giacomo Nicotera, 1 Danilo Fischetti.
Replacements: 16 Gianmarco Lucchesi, 17 Luca Rizzoli, 18 Marco Riccioni, 19 Dino Lamb, 20 Manuel Zuliani, 21 Ross Vintcent, 22 Alessandro Garbisi, 23 Jacopo Trulla.

Date: Saturday, February 8
Venue: Stadio Olimpico, Rome
Kick-off: 15.15 (14.15 GMT)
Referee: Matthew Carley (England)
Assistant referees: Paul Williams (New Zealand), Sam Grove-White (Scotland)
TMO: Glenn Newman (New Zealand)