Wales v Italy
Italy turn to youth for Wales Test
ESPN Staff
January 30, 2014
Angelo Espósito lifts the IRB Junior World Trophy in 2013 © IRB
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Italy have named a youthful team ahead of their match against Wales on Saturday.

The Azzurri are plagued by injuries and Brunel has decided to give Treviso winger Angelo Esposito his Italy debut while also starting inexperienced Michele Campagnaro, Leonardo Sarto and Tommaso Allan.

Veteran flanker Mauro Bergamasco will become Italy's longest serving player overtaking Sergio Lanfranchi.

Bergamasco's younger brother, Mirco has been left out of the squad. He was hoping to be in the team after recovering from a serious knee injury that kept him out of the national team for two years. Among those absent through injury are Wasps full-back Andrea Masi, Zebre wing Giovanbattista Venditti and La Rochelle centre Gonzalo Canale.

Italy team:

L McLean (Treviso); A Esposito (Treviso), M Campagnaro (Treviso), A Sgarbi (Treviso), L Sarto (Zebre), T Allan (Perpignan), E Gori (Treviso); M Rizzo (Treviso) L Ghiraldini (Treviso), M Castrogiovanni (Toulon) Q Geldenhuys (Zebre), M Bortolami (Zebre), A Zanni (Treviso), M Bergamasco (Zebre), S Parisse (Stade Francais).

Replacements: D Giazzon (Zebre), A De Machi (Treviso), J Furno (Biarritz Olympique), F Minto (Treviso), T W Botes (Treviso) L Orquera (Zebre), T Iannone (Zebre).

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd

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