The unbeaten Italy will play Uruguay on Wednesday at 17:45 in their Pool A match in Nice. Italy can move into second place in Pool A if they earn one bonus point against Uruguay while Uruguay are still looking for their first win of the 2023 Rugby World Cup.
This will be just the fifth meeting between Italy and Uruguay in men’s Test rugby, with Italy having won each of their previous four meetings, however, the Azzurri’s most recent win against Uruguay came by a margin of just seven points (17-10 in November 2021)
Italian head coach Kieran Crowley has made four changes to his starting XV from the team who defeated Namibia 52-8 in the opening round. Marco Riccioni comes into the front row, Niccolò Cannone into the second row, Alessandro Garbisi into scrum-half and Lorenzo Pani onto the wing.
Andrea Moretti, Italy's assistant coach said they believe they can qualify for a Rugby World Cup quarter-final for the first time. "When we started camp on 5 June, the first block was fitness and our pre-World Cup warm-up games. The second block was about the games against Namibia and now Uruguay. Then we will think about the third block which is the remaining games (against New Zealand and France). We came here to try and win as many games as possible, but we know we have to deliver on the pitch. The boys are only focusing on the present, what they can control which at the moment is the Uruguay game, then we can start thinking about the other two games."
Uruguay's head coach Esteban Meneses has made only two changes to his starting 15 from the team that lost 27-12 against France in Lille, with German Kessler coming in at hooker and Gaston Mieres onto the wing. There are 13 survivors in the match-day 23 from the last time they played Italy in 2021, including 11 in the starting line-up - German Kessler, Ignacio Peculo, Manual Ardao, Nicolas Freitas, Felipe Etcheverry, Tomas Inciarte, Manuel Diana, Diego Arbelo, Manuel Leindekar, Gaston Mieres and their only try-scorer that day, Matteo Sanguinetti.
Joaquin Pastore, Uruguay's assistant coach said he hopes at Rugby World Cup 2023 that they can directly qualify for the next Rugby World Cup. "We want to directly qualify for the next World Cup. To do that we have to win our next two games [against Italy and Namibia]. We have grown so much as a team over the past four years. That is down to the hard work of the players. Our strategy over the 10 days was to be able to prepare for the game against Italy. After our game against France we were able to turn the page straight away and focus on Italy."
Teams:
Italy: 1 Danilo Fischetti, 2 Giacomo Nicotera, 3 Marco Riccioni, 4 Niccolo Cannone, 5 Federico Ruzza, 6 Sebastian Negri, 7 Michele Lamaro (c), 8 Lorenzo Cannone, 9 Alessandro Garbisi, 10 Tommaso Allan, 11 Montanna Ioane, 12 Paolo Garbisi, 13 Juan Ignacio Brex, 14 Lorenzo Pani, 15 Ange Capuozzo. Replacements: 16 Luca Bigi, 17 Federico Zani, 18 Pietro Ceccarelli, 19 Dino Lamb, 20 Manuel Zuliani, 21 Giovanni Pettinelli, 22 Alessandro Fusco, 23 Paolo Odogwu.
Uruguay: 1 Mateo Sanguinetti, 2 German Kessler, 3 Ignacio Peculo, 4 Felipe Aliaga, 5 Manuel Leindekar, 6 Manuel Ardao, 7 Santiago Civetta, 8 Manuel Diana, 9 Santiago Arata, 10 Felipe Etcheverry, 11 Nicolas Freitas, 12 Andres Vilaseca (c), 13 Tomas Inciarte, 14 Gaston Mieres, 15 Baltazar Amaya. Replacements: 16 Guillermo Pujadas, 17 Facundo Gattas, 18 Diego Arbelo, 19 Ignacio Dotti, 20 Carlos Deus, 21 Agustin Ormaechea, 22 Felipe Berchesi, 23 Bautista Basso.