{"id":294493,"date":"2026-02-12T16:41:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T16:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/294493\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T16:41:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T16:41:08","slug":"italy-stay-with-winning-formula-for-six-nations-clash-with-ireland-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/294493\/","title":{"rendered":"Italy stay with winning formula for Six Nations clash with Ireland \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/italy-rugby\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/italy-rugby\">Italy<\/a> have stuck with a winning line-up \u200cfor Saturday\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/six-nations\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/six-nations\">Six Nations<\/a> clash against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/ireland-rugby\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/ireland-rugby\">Ireland<\/a>, making only a single enforced change from \u200cthe side that beat Scotland 18-15 in their opening match of this year\u2019s championship last \u200bweekend.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Leonardo Marin moves from fullback to centre to replace Juan Ignacio Brex, who asked to be excused from the trip to Dublin for family reasons which have not \u200bbeen disclosed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Lorenzo Pani comes off last weekend\u2019s replacement bench to take over at fullback \u2060for Saturday\u2019s game in his first start in almost two years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">That \u200cmeans \u200cthere \u200bis no place in the matchday squad for fullback Ange Capuozzo as well as scrumhalf Stephen Varney, \u2060who both returned from injury \u200bthis week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Capuozzo has not played this \u200byear since breaking a finger playing in the French Top 14 \u200cleague while Varney has been nursing \u200ban adductor injury.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Coach Gonzalo Quesada will be looking to use Brex\u2019s \u2060absence to pair Marin, who \u2060has played \u200bacross the backline for Italy, with Tommaso Menoncello, who he has suggested in the past could become a regular midfield combination for the Italians.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Quesada has gone for a 6-2 split among the replacements with David Odiase one of two changes on the bench as an extra forward while Paolo Odogwu is a utility \u200cpick for backline \u2060cover, along with reserve scrumhalf Alessandro Garbisi.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">ITALY (v Ireland): Lorenzo Pani; Louis Lynagh, Leonardo Marin, Tommaso Menoncello, Monty Ioane; Paolo Garbisi, Alessandro \u200cFusco; Danilo Fischetti, Giacomo Nicotera, Simone Ferrari; Niccolo Cannone, Andrea Zambonin; Michele Lamaro (capt), Manuel Zuliani, Lorenzo Cannone.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Replacements: Tommaso di Bartolomeo, Mirco Spagnolo, Muhamed Hasa, Federico Ruzza, Riccardo Favretto, David Odiase, Alessandro Garbisi, Paolo Odogwu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Italy have stuck with a winning line-up \u200cfor Saturday\u2019s Six Nations clash against Ireland, making only a single&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,1449,132479,43,15551],"class_list":["post-294493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-ireland-rugby","tag-italy-rugby","tag-news","tag-six-nations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}