Benetton gear up to battle the Bulls

Benetton Rugby arrived in Pretoria on Tuesday with 28 players and Coach Marco Bortolami along with his technical staff have decided on a lineup that has seen a few change changes from to their match in Monigo a week ago. The head coach of the Treviso team has kept  Rhyno Smith at fullback in the attacking midfield. The right winger is Tommaso Menoncello  and on the left he confirms  Onisi Ratave . In the center there is room for the returning Malakai Fekitoa with Ignacio Brex . Trust in scrumhalf  Andy Uren and Tomas Albornoz takes his place again from the first minute .

There are some changes in the green and white pack. Thomas Gallo will be the left prop, Simone Ferrari confirms as right prop  and Bautista Bernasconi takes over as hooker . In the second row the Italian duo formed by Edoardo Iachizzi with the recovered Federico Ruzza . In the third line there are no changes: one flanker is  Alessandro Izekor , the other is captain Michele Lamaro . Number 8 is Toa Halafihi again .

“ The clash between the two forward packs will be decisive and for this reason we have opted to go to the bench with the 6 plus 2. There are also some changes to inject fresh and new energy from the first minute and the other boys will come off the bench to finish the job. Between the midfield we chose to move Menoncello as a winger and insert Fekitoa in the center to add the maximum physicality possible. Furthermore, Malakai gives us a lot of experience having already played matches of this caliber many times; I'm sure he will offer a great contribution” comments head coach Marco Bortolami  on the formation choices.

Benetton Rugby :

15 Rhyno Smith (55)
14 Tommaso Menoncello (45)
13 Ignacio Brex (85)
12 Malakai Fekitoa (14)
11 Onisi Ratave (26)
10 Tomas Albornoz (52)
9 Andy Uren (23)
8 Toa Halafihi (76)
7 Michele Lamaro (C) (69)
6 Alessandro Izekor (36)
5 Federico Ruzza (115)
4 Edoardo Iachizzi (16)
3 Simone Ferrari (107)
2 Bautista Bernasconi (23)
1 Thomas Gallo (59)

Available: 16 Gianmarco Lucchesi (48), 17 Mirco Spagnolo (18), 18 Giosué Zilocchi (18), 19 Eli Snyman (45), 20 Niccolò Cannone (75), 21 Lorenzo Cannone (44), 22 Alessandro Garbisi (48 ), 23 Jacob Umaga (38).

()= presences in green and white

Head Coach : Marco Bortolami.

Unavailable : Sam Hidalgo-Clyne, Gideon Koegelenberg, Marco Lazzaroni, Ignacio Mendy, Sebastian Negri, Ivan Nemer, Giacomo Nicotera, Paolo Odogwu, Nahuel Tetaz Chaparro, Manuel Zuliani.

Referee: Mike Adamson (SRU)

Assistants: Sam Grove-White (SRU) and Adam Jones (WRU)

TMO: Ben Whitehouse (WRU)

LIVE – The match can be followed verbatim on the official Benetton Rugby Twitter page with the hashtag #BULvBEN. The match will also be broadcast live on Sky Sport Arena (channel 204).