The white & black boys arrive to this game aiming to get another victory over a Welsh side after gaining the double in the season over the Cardiff Blues. The Italian north-west club are in hunt for historical first consecutive home wins as Bortolami and his team mates defeated Wales' capital side one month ago in Parma.
In front of the home crowd, Zebre have got two wins this season and are very focused to maintain an unbeaten run at home until the end of the PRO12 season where they host Dragons, Edinburgh and Ospreys in the race against Treviso for the national lead which will be necessary to play into next main European Cup.
After a week of rest Italy's backs Sarto, Garcia and Orquera are back into Zebre starting line-up along with lock Geldenhuys: one of the only three Azzurri who played all the 400 minutes of the last Six Nations. The Italian-South African forward will strengthen the Zebre pack who will face a strong battle as the Dragons want to cancel the bad scrum and maul performaces of last fixture, the home loss to Connacht who cost to Lyn Jones side the 8th place.
Here's Zebre line-up for Saturday 28 March 2014 at Stadio XXV Aprile in Parma for the 18th round of the RaboDirect PRO12 against the Dragons. Kick off at 4 pm local time :
15 Guglielmo PALAZZANI
14 Leonardo SARTO*
13 Tommaso IANNONE*
12 Gonzalo GARCIA
11 Dion BERRYMAN
10 Luciano ORQUERA
9 Brendon LEONARD
8 Samuela VUNISA
7 Andries VAN SCHALKWYK
6 Filippo FERRARINI*
5 Marco BORTOLAMI (cap)
4 Quintin GELDENHUYS
3 David RYAN
2 Davide GIAZZON
1 Salvatore PERUGINI
Replacements :
16 Tommaso D'APICE*
17 Matias AGUERO
18 Dario CHISTOLINI
19 Emiliano CAFFINI*
20 Filippo CRISTIANO
21 David ODIETE*
22 Giovanbattista VENDITTI*
23 Kameli RATUVOU
Coach. Andrea CAVINATO
Not available for selection due to injury: Mauro BERGAMASCO, George BIAGI, Paolo BUSO, Nicola CATTINA, Andrea MANICI*, Matteo PRATICHETTI, Roberto QUARTAROLI*, Luca REDOLFINI, Ruggero TREVISAN*
Referee: Peter Fitzgibbon (Irish Rugby Football Union) at his 54th competition game, first ever with Zebre in the Rabodirect PRO12
Assistant Referees: Giuseppe Vivarini and Elia Rizzo (both Federazione Italiana Rugby)
TMO: Carlo Damasco (Federazione Italiana Rugby)
Live tv coverage in Italy on Mediaset Italia 2. Live score text coverage on www.rabodirectpro12.com/live
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