Zebre Rugby Team Announcement for Cardiff PRO12 opener

Biagi and his team mates cut the ribbon of their fourth celtic campaign away on Sunday September 6 at the Arms Park in Cardiff, the same venue where Zebre closed last season. The challenge of the Welsh capital will close the first round of the tournament and will oppose for the first time the new head coaches of both sides: Danny Wilson and Gianluca Guidi.

Many internationals won't be part of this game beacuse of thier calls for the upcoming Rugby World Cup starting in two weeks in England. In fact there are 9 Zebre players in the Italian national squad while 8 also miss the encounter for the Cardiff Blues: two with USA, one for Samoa and five with Wales which hosts Italy tomorrow at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff for the last friendly match before the start of the World Cup.

The Blues arrive to this debut after the 31-26 victory against Bristol and the home defeat 38-25 against the Dragons of last Sunday; same route plan for the Italian North-West side beaten in the Italian derby 14-12 by Benetton in Monigo and vanquishes of Rugby Rovigo 38-25 last weekend. In the 23 list of Zebre there will be six permit players from Italian clubs, all as starters.

For the first official match of the season the coaching staff composed by head coach Gianluca Guidi assisted by forwards coach Victor Jimenez and backs coach Fabio Roselli could not select Ruzza and Lovotti due to last minute injuries and the longtime injured Bisegni, Boni, Haimona, Padovani and Roan.

Team manager Andrea de Rossi on Zebre's opener in Cardiff: "We have selected a line-up that arises from the choices made months ago during our reinforcement campaign that also looks to the future: we're proud to have shared a tough summer emotionally very deep for everyone due to the loss of our video analyst Luca Sisti. Staff and players are united by their desire to start this competition and prove that they're worth of it. I personally think that the team that will play in Cardiff is rightly the best possible and reflects the choices made by the technical programming; both collective and individual for the players currently available. After Sunday's game Zebre will stay in Wales during the next week in our headquarters in Newport. In addition to better prepare for another tough match against the Dragons, these days of retreat will also be useful to build further the new group that will face this first window of the tournament concurrent with the World Cup. The remaining group of athletes will stay in Parma to work with the other part of our staff."

Here's Zebre line-up for Sunday September 6 match at the Arms Park in Cardiff (Wales) for the 1st round of the Guinness PRO12 against the Cardiff Blues. Kick off at 2.30 pm local time:

15 Kayle Van Zyl
14 Gabriele Di Giulio*
13 Tommaso Castello
12 Mattia Bellini
11 Michele Visentin*
10 Maicol Azzolini*
9 Luke Burgess

8 Andries Van Schalkwyk
7 Maxime Mbandà*
6 Paul Derbyshire
5 George Biagi (cap)
4 Michele Sutto
3 Pietro Ceccarelli
2 Tommaso D'Apice*
1 Bruno Postiglioni

Replacements:

16 Oliviero Fabiani
17 Andrea De Marchi
18 Emiliano Coria
19 Marco Bortolami
20 Johan Meyer
21 Giulio Toniolatti
22 Ulrich Beyers
23 Matteo Pratichetti

Coach. Gianluca Guidi

*Former member of the Italian Rugby Union academy "Ivan Francescato" of Tirrenia.

Referee: Andrew Bracey (IRFU, first competition game)
Assistant Referees: Gwyn Morris e Ben Whitehouse (both WRU)
TMO: Jon Mason (Wales Rugby Union)