opening round loss<\/a> to last year\u2019s Six Nations champions France, questions have been raised over selection as well as overall performance.<\/p>\nIn the pre-match press conference, Farrell explained Edogbo \u201chas shown real quality in his performances for Munster and in training with us over recent times.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n
Farrell has made six changes to his starting line-up, which includes five Munster players and two Six Nations debutantes.<\/p>\n
Ulster\u2019s Cormac Izuchukwu will make his first start at blindside flanker alongside captain Caelen Doris and Jack Conan. Izuchukwu\u2019s clubmate Robert Baloucoune will also earn his first cap, partnering James Lowe on the wing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The front row\u00a0remains\u00a0unchanged\u00a0in Loughman, Sheehan and Clarkson, with McCarthy and Ryan in the second row. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Sam Prendergast\u00a0retains\u00a0the\u00a0outhalf\u00a0jersey\u00a0ahead of Jack Crowley\u00a0and\u00a0is partnered\u00a0with Craig Casey\u00a0at scrumhalf. <\/p>\n
Osborne continues at full back in the absence of Hugo Keenan, and McCloskey and Ringrose are retained in the midfield.<\/p>\n
And in positive injury news, Tadhg Furlong returns to the matchday squad and is among the replacements.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Italians\u00a0come to Dublin off the back of a\u00a0hard-fought\u00a0victory over Scotland in Rome and will be looking to continue their run of form.<\/p>\n
Ireland will hope to silence their\u00a0critics and put in a dominant performance against the Italians to get their tournament back on track.\u00a0The game\u00a0kicks\u00a0off at 2.10 and will\u00a0be shown\u00a0live\u00a0on Virgin Media One.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Irish team is as follows:\u00a0<\/p>\n
Backs:\u00a0Osborne, Baloucoune, Ringrose, McCloskey, Lowe, Prendergast, Casey\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Forwards:\u00a0Loughman, Sheehan, Clarkson, McCarthy, Ryan, Izuchukwu, Doris (captain) Conan\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Replacements:\u00a0Kelleher, O\u2019Toole, Furlong,\u00a0Edogbo, Beirne, Timoney, Gibson-Park, Crowley\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\t\tPost navigation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ireland head coach Andy Farrell has named Munster\u2019s Edwin Edogbo in his squad to face Italy in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[25747,132379,61,60,1449,6999,11897,43,15551],"class_list":{"0":"post-295027","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-andy-farrell","9":"tag-edwin-edogbo","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-ireland-rugby","13":"tag-munster","14":"tag-munster-rugby","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-six-nations"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295027","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=295027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}