New-look Treviso hopeful of progress

The Italian side finished 11th last season and coach Umberto Casellato has spent the summer reshaping his squad, bringing in 24 new faces from all corners of the globe.

Pavanello has revealed Casellato currently has his work cut out when it comes to putting his ideas across, but trusts all will be in place ahead of the GUINNESS PRO12 season opener against Ospreys on September 5.

"We are excited to start the new season and for us it is an important season because we have changed a lot from the previous years," he said.

"We have new faces in the club, both players and staff. We have a new head coach and he wants a more open play and we have 24 new players so we have to mix a lot of people.

"It's difficult with all the new players coming in because a lot of guys are strangers and are foreign players who don't know Italian and there are some Italian players that don't speak English.

"So, every time, the coach has to speak both languages, so maybe sometimes it doesn't translate all the things he wants from Italian to English."

Pavanello acknowledges such wholesale changes were required if the club want to challenge in the top half of the PRO12 table and push towards European qualification.

But, rather than dwell on the mistakes made last year, he is happy for the slate to be wiped clean.

"Last season was very bad for a lot of reasons and if I start to tell you we would be here for an hour," he added.

"We hope that for this season we can do great things and we will start from a base that we can grow from.

"We have lost a lot of good players but we hope the new players, especially the foreign ones will be able to add a good contribution to the team.

"We know for example that players like [Leonardo] Ghiraldini and [Luke] McLean are difficult to substitute, so we hope for a good season from them.

"It is a fresh start and the players have a new attitude to the training and we are always positive."

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