Italy coach Nick Mallett has made four changes to his team to face England at Twickenham in the Six Nations on Saturday.

Scrum-half Edoardo Gori and New Zealand-born flanker Josh Sole miss the game with injury and are replaced by Pablo Canavosio and Valerio Bernabo respectively.

The other two switches see Australia-born fly-half Kris Burton drop to the bench with Luciano Orquera replacing him and South African-born lock Carlo Del Fava coming in for Santiago Dellape.

The England team is unchanged.

Italy team manager Luigi Troiani explained that Orquera's selection ahead of Burton was to be expected.

"Orquera should also have started against Ireland but he was coming back from an injury in November and it was he himself who said he didn't feel quite ready, so now the coach is giving him his chance," he said.

Last week England began their Six Nations campaign with an impressive 26-19 success in Wales while Italy suffered a last-gasp 13-11 defeat at home to Ireland.

And prop Martin Castrogiovanni, who plays his club rugby in England with Leicester Tigers, believes this match will be as tough as they come for the Azzurri.

"Of course it will be a very tough game, we saw against Wales that they're in great form and I think they'll fight for the title with France this year," he said.

Italy have never beaten England in 16 previous encounters, including 11 in the Six Nations, but England manager Martin Johnson dismissed any notion of his team underestimating the Italians.

"We seem to have the same conversation whenever you play Italy, even going back to when we played them in the 1995 World Cup and the World Cup qualifier in 1998 - they are tough games," Johnson said.

"They should have won last week. They can play. They keep hold of the ball and put you under pressure and that's the game."

Italy

Luke McLean; Andrea Masi, Gonzalo Canale, Alberto Sgarbi, Mirco Bergamasco; Luciano Orquera, Pablo Canavosio; SergioParisse (capt), Alessandro Zanni, Valerio Bernabo; Quintin Geldenhuys, Carlo Del Fava; Martin Castrogiovanni, Leonardo Ghiraldini, Salvatore Perugini

Replacements: Fabio Ongaro, Andrea Lo Cicero, Santiago Dellape, Robert Barbieri, Fabio Semenzato, Kris Burton, Gonzalo Garcia

England (15-1)

Ben Foden; Chris Ashton, Mike Tindall (capt), Shontayne Hape, Mark Cueto; Toby Flood, Ben Youngs; Nick Easter, James Haskell, Tom Wood; Tom Palmer, Louis Deacon; Dan Cole, Dylan Hartley, Andrew Sheridan

Replacements: David Wilson, Henre Fourie, Danny Care, Jonny Wilkinson, Steve Thompson, Simon Shaw, Matt Banahan

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