Campagnaro to face Fijians

By Mark Stevens
15/6/17

Exeter Chiefs centre Michele Campagnaro will line-up for Italy in their latest summer tour clash against Fiji in Suva.

Campagnaro was on the scoresheet for the Azzurri during last weekend's encounter with Scotland, but was unable to help his side from crashing to a 34-13 defeat in Singapore.

Ahead of this latest clash, Italy head coach Conor O'Shea has made two changes to his starting line-up.

The only change amongst the backs sees Marcello Violi taking over from Edoardo Gori, who captained the Azzurri in their loss to Scotland. This will be the first time Violi starts a Test after he made three appearances off the replacements bench for Italy.

Meanwhile, in the pack, Abraham Steyn comes into the run-on side at No.8 in place of Robert Barbieri. With Gori dropping out of the match-day squad, Francesco Minto will captain the side for the first time.

Italy: 15 Edoardo Padovani, 14 Angelo Esposito, 13 Michele Campagnaro, 12 Tommaso Boni, 11 Leonardo Sarto, 10 Tommaso Allan, 9 Marcello Violi, 8 Abraham Steyn, 7 Maxime Mbanda’, 6 Francesco Minto (capt), 5 Dean Budd, 4 Marco Fuser, 3 Simone Ferrari, 2 Luca Bigi, 1 Andrea Lovotti

Replacements: 16 Ornel Gega, 17 Federico Zani, 18 Tiziano Pasquali, 19 Andries Van Schalkwyk, 20 Federico Ruzza, 21 Tito Tebaldi, 22 Carlo Canna, 23 Tommaso Benvenuti