Italy head coach Conor O’Shea has made 13 changes to his starting line-up for Saturday’s Test with Ireland at Soldier Field in Chicago.
The only survivors from the Azzurri‘s last Test – a 25-22 victory over Japan in their international at the Noevir Stadium in Kobe in June – are outside centre Michele Campagnaro, who will captain the side in the absence of regular skipper Sergio Parisse, and tighthead prop Tiziano Pasquali.
The rest of the squad consists mostly of inexperienced players with South African-born flanker Johan Meyer set to make his Test debut.
“We have a very difficult challenge against Ireland, who in the past created problems that we did not manage properly,” O’Shea told Reuters.
“But we will give 100 percent on the field. We are ambitious and we want to show our game. It will be important for us to put in a physically strong performance.”
Italy: 15 Luca Sperandio, 14 Mattia Bellini, 13 Michele Campagnaro (c), 12 Luca Morisi, 11 Giulio Bisegni, 10 Carlo Canna, 9 Tito Tebaldi, 8 Rento Giammarioli, 7 Bram Steyn, 6 Johan Meyer, 5 George Fabio Biagi, 4 Marco Fuser, 3 Tiziano Pasquali, 2 Luca Bigi, 1 Nicola Quaglio
Replacements: 16 Oliviero Fabiani, 17 Cherif Traore, 18 Giosue Zilocchi, 19 Marco Lazzaroni, 20 Federico Ruzza, 21 Jimmy Tuivatti, 22 Guglielmo Palazzani, 23 Ian McKinley
Date: Saturday, November 3
Venue: Soldier Field, Chicago
Kick-off: 15:00 local (22:00 GMT)
Referee: Nigel Owens (Wales)
Assistant referees: Romain Poite (France), Alexandre Ruiz (France)
TMO: David Ardrey (USA)