Italy v Russia: Teams
Italy coach Nick Mallett has named a much-changed line-up to take on the brave Bears at Trafalgar Park in Nelson.
Last Updated: 19/09/11 8:20pm
Italy coach Nick Mallett has rung the changes for the Pool C clash with Russia as his side look to register their first win at the World Cup.
Captain Sergio Parisse, full-back Andrew Masi and Tommaso Benvenuti are the only three survivors from the starting line-up for the 32-6 loss to Australia.
Benvenuti, though, will switch from wing to outside centre for Tuesday's match in Nelson - with Mallett full of praise of the 20-year-old.
"He is our fastest player and is as comfortable in the centres as he is on the wing," Mallett said.
"He has played there a lot for Treviso, notably against Leicester and Perpignan, and knows what to do there. He is important to our decision-making."
Understanding
Benvenuti will partner Matteo Pratichetti in the middle of the park, and he is confident they will quickly strike up an understanding.
"We are flexible, we will adapt to the characteristics of the adversaries," he said.
Edoardo Gori and Riccardo Bocchino start at scrum-half and fly-half respectively, while there are places on the wings for Giulio Toniolatti and Luke McLean.
In the pack, Salvatore Perugini is drafted in at loosehead prop for his first match since Italy's Six Nations victory over France in March. He is joined in the front row by tighthead Lorenzo Cittadini and hooker Fabio Ongaro.
Russia have four alterations from the team that lost 15-6 to USA in their opening fixture of the tournament, including Konstantin Rachkov moving from inside centre to fly-half
Yury Kushnarev drops to the bench, while in the pack Australian-born lock Adam Byrnes is preferred to Denis Antonov in the second row.
"The coaches have analysed the game against USA and told us the mistakes that we have made," said full-back Igor Klyuchnikov
"Our main problem was that we have lost the ball frequently, did not have long-lasting attacks and therefore were forced to spend much time in defence.
"We will apply different tactics against Italy. We are training various combinations in defence and attack. Our forwards are working on line-outs especially as we had many errors at throw-in against the USA."
Italy: 15 Andrea Masi, 14 Giulio Toniolatti, 13 Tommaso Benvenuti, 12 Matteo Pratichetti, 11 Luke McLean, 10 Riccardo Bocchino, 9 Edoardo Gori, 8 Sergio Parisse (capt), 7 Mauro Bergamasco, 6 Paul Derbyshire, 5 Marco Bortolami, 4 Quintin Geldenhuys, 3 Lorenzo Cittadini, 2 Fabio Ongaro, 1 Salvatore Perugini.
Replacements: 16 Tommaso D'Apice, 17 Martin Castrogiovanni, 18 Cornelius van Zyl, 19 Alessandro Zanni, 20 Pablo Canavosio, 21 Luciano Orquera, 22 Alberto Sgarbi.
Russia: 15 Igor Klyuchnikov, 14 Vasily Artemyev, 13 Andrey Kuzin, 12 Alexey Makovetskiy, 11 Vladimir Ostroushko, 10 Konstantin Rachkov, 9 Alexander Shakirov, 8 Victor Gresev , 7 Andrey Garbuzov, 6 Vyacheslav Grachev , 5 Adam Byrnes, 4 Alexander Voytov, 3 Ivan Prishchepenko, 2 Vladislav Korshunov (c), 1 Vladimir Botvinnikov
Replacements: 16 Valery Tsnobiladze, 17 Alexander Khrokin, 18 Denis Antonov, 19 Artem Fatakhov, 20 Alexander Yanyushkin, 21 Mikhail Sidorov, 22 Yury Kushnarev.
