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Cape Town - Italy head coach Conor O'Shea has appointed veteran hooker Leonardo Ghiraldini as captain for their encounter with Japan in Oita on Saturday.
Ghiraldini takes over the reins from regular skipper Sergio Parisse who has been rested for the Azzurri's two-Test series against Japan.
O'Shea has made four changes in all to his starting line-up which started in Italy's last Test - a 29-27 Six defeat to Scotland in Rome in March.
In the only change to the back-line, Michele Campagnaro replaces Giulio Bisegni at outside centre. This will be Campagnaro's first appearance at Test level in 2018 after he had a lengthy spell on the sidelines with a knee injury.
In other changes, Abraham Steyn comes in for Parisse at number eight while Giovanni Licata takes over from Jake Polledri on the openside flank and Tiziano Pasquali replaces Simone Ferrari at tighthead prop.
Teams:
Japan
TBA
Italy
15 Matteo Minozzi, 14 Tommaso Benvenuti, 13 Michele Campagnaro, 12 Tommaso Castello, 11 Mattia Bellini, 10 Tommaso Allan, 9 Marcello Violi, 8 Abraham Steyn, 7 Giovanni Licata, 6 Sebastian Negri, 5 Dean Budd, 4 Alessandro Zanni, 3 Tiziano Pasquali, 2 Leonardo Ghiraldini (captain), 1 Andrea Lovotti
Substitutes: 16 Luca Bigi, 17 Federico Zani, 18 Giosuè Zilocchi, 19 George Biagi, 20 Marco Fuser, 21 Jake Polledri, 22 Tito Tebaldi, 23 Jayden Hayward
