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No Parisse as Italy ring changes for Canada

Tokyo - Italy announced 10 changes on Monday for their Rugby World Cup match against Canada and rested talismanic captain Sergio Parisse, with an eye on sterner tests against New Zealand and South Africa.

Lock Dean Budd will skipper the side in Parisse's absence in Fukuoka on Thursday, as the Azzurri look to improve on their unconvincing 47-22 win against minnows Namibia.

Only Jayden Hayward, Luca Bigi, Tommaso Allan, Tommaso Benvenuti and Braam Steyn keep their places and coach Conor O'Shea has also tinkered with the back line, moving Hayward from fullback to inside centre.

The halfback combination of Callum Braley and Tommaso Allan is the 13th different pairing used by Italy since the 2015 World Cup.

Even O'Shea admitted after Sunday's Namibia match: "We'll have to move on from that pretty quickly. It wasn't very pretty. There's too many errors in it."

Conditions were tricky at the Hanazono Stadium, with the weather ranging from bright sunshine to torrential rain as the players were unlucky enough to catch the very edge of a typhoon swirling to Japan's west.

Italy, the Six Nations wooden-spooners, should have too much firepower for Canada who are ranked 22, the second lowest side at the Rugby World Cup after Namibia.

Italy are aiming to make it into the quarter-finals for the first time in their history and are targeting the October 4 clash against heavyweights South Africa as their chance to climb out of the pool.

Canada meanwhile named 11 of the team that started in their last warm-up game against the USA.

Canada have been to every edition of the World Cup, reaching the quarter-finals in 1991 with narrow wins over Fiji and Romania.

Once the undisputed powerhouse of North American rugby, Canada's fortunes have been on a downward spiral over the past decade and they only scraped into this year's event via the repechage.

They have virtually no chance of repeating their 1991 heroics, as they are drawn in the same pool as southern hemisphere giants South Africa and New Zealand.

Kick off on Thursday is at 09:45 SA time.

Teams:

Italy

15 Matteo Minozzi; 14 Tommaso Benvenuti, 13 Michele Campagnaro, 12 Jayden Hayward, 11 Giulio Bisegni; 10 Tommaso Allan, 9 Callum Braley; 8 Braam Steyn, 7 Jake Polledri, 6 Sebastian Negri; 5 Dean Budd (capt), 4 David Sisi; 3 Simone Ferrari, 2 Luca Bigi, 1 Andrea Lovotti

Substitutes: 16 Federico Zani, 17 Nicola Quaglio, 18 Marco Riccioni, 19 Federico Ruzza, 20 Maxime Mbanda, 21 Guglielmo Palazzani, 22 Carlo Canna, 23 Mattia Bellini

Canada

15 Patrick Parfrey; 14 Jeff Hassler, 13 Ben Lesage, 12 Nick Blevins, 11 DTH Van Der Merwe; 10 Peter Nelson, 9 Gordon McRorie; 8 Tyler Ardron (capt), 7 Lucas Rumball, 6 Michael Sheppard; 5 Josh Larsen, 4 Conor Keys; 3 Matt Tierney, 2 Eric Howard, 1 Hubert Buydens

Substitutes: 16 Benoit Piffero, 17 Djustice Duru-Sears, 18 Jake Ilnicki, 19 Luke Campbell, 20 Matt Heaton, 21 Jamie Mackenzie, 22 Ciaran Hearn, 23 Andrew Coe

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