Italy coach Jacques Brunel has made two changes to his line-up for their clash with Australia at Stadio Artemio Franchi in Florence on Saturday.
Robert Barbieri returns to the back-row, alongside captain Sergio Parisse and Alessandro Zanni with Simon Favaro returning to the bench.
Quintin Geldenhuys replaces Antonio Pavanello at lock to partner Francesco Minto in the scrum.
Brunel has retained the half-back pairing of Luciano Orquera and Edoardo Gori and made no other changes to the side which kept a tight rein on the All Blacks for an hour in Rome last week.
Italy beat Tonga 28-23 in the first test and despite a promising start against New Zealand - the hosts trailed just 13-7 at half-time - the Azzurri ran out of steam as the fitter All Blacks scored a late flurry of tries.
Brunel replaced Nick Mallett as coach of Italy last year and has made playing more open, expansive rugby his number one objective.
Italy, who are traditionally strong in the scrum and set-pieces, produced an encouraging first-half display last week but later in the match were left lamenting several try-scoring chances that went begging.
A similar performance will be expected against the Wallabies, although Brunel will be hoping his side can match the Aussies' verve and pace up until the final whistle.
"The return of Barbieri in the third row and Geldenhuys in the second row is designed to add more power to the team from the start," said Brunel.
"But after our positive attitude in Rome, we did not want to make too many changes."
Joining the replacements bench from the squad named earlier this month were Michele Rizzo and Manoa Vosawai, who have not played in either test yet.
"We're playing against a really top level team which, in their last outing against the All Blacks put them in difficulty before drawing the match 18-18," he added.
"Even though Australia suffered a heavy defeat against France they bounced back to beat England last week."
Italy: 15 Andrea Masi, 14 Giovambattista Venditti, 13 Tommaso Benvenuti, 12 Alberto Sgarbi, 11 Mirco Bergamasco, 10 Luciano Orquera, 9 Edoardo Gori, 8 Sergio Parisse (capt), 7 Robert Barbieri, 6 Alessandro Zanni, 5 Francesco Minto, 4 Quintin Geldenhuys, 3 Martin Castrogiovanni, 2 Leonardo Ghiraldini, 1 Andrea Lo Cicero.
Replacements: 16 Davide Giazzon, 17 Michele Rizzo, 18 Lorenzo Cittadini, 19 Antonio Pavanello, 20 Simone Favaro, 21 Manoa Vosawai, 22 Tobias Botes, 23 Luke McLean.
Date: Saturday, November 24
Venue: Stadio Artemio Franchi, Florence
Kick-off: 15.00 local (14.00 GMT)
Referee: Lourens van der Merwe (South Africa)
Assistant referees: Wayne Barnes (England), Neil Paterson (Scotland)
Comments
Lucasrg says...
@tomstodon ...well said!
@Everyone ...It's Lucas guys, not Luca...nice to meet you.
Posted 22:36 23rd November 2012
tomstodon says...
Luca I agree with you Orquera is not up to the standard for an international 10, I have wondered many times why we don't start to introduce youngs fly half at club level, aka for Treviso and Zebre, after all these franchises have the responsibility to allow young player to get professional experience. 3 years down the line the World Cup awaits... 3 years experience for a young player to develop maybe? I can't see Burton or Orquera playing in 3 years at the World Cup.
Posted 07:51 23rd November 2012
carpelone says...
Luca. This is the first article on Italy in a week.
Orquera played well together with Gori, Barbieri has been outstanding in the Celtic League, Favaro played fantastically, with a couple of huge hits to be remembered.
Posted 21:20 22nd November 2012
Lucasrg says...
Decent team, good to keep the same half-backs. Orquera is defenitly not my cup of tea, but this is what we got.
Finally Barbieri is in the first XV so he can show the world how good is he. Expect a lot of flares from him. and some tough tackles!
Good sign from PR to write couple more paragraphs for Italy. well done!
Posted 18:16 22nd November 2012
carpelone says...
It would be interesting to see if Italy can replicate their good performance against New Zealand. This would be a massive step forward.
Posted 17:30 22nd November 2012