Italy coach Pierre Berbizier has made six changes to his team humbled by New Zealand for their make-or-break World Cup Pool C match against Romania at the Stade Velodrome on Wednesday.

Berbizier brought in Paul Griffen and Ramiro Pez in at half-back in place of Roland de Marigny and Alessandro Troncon for a match Italy must win to give them a chance of making the quarter-finals for the first time.

Gonzalo Canale takes Andrea Masi's spot at outside centre, Josh Sole wears the blindside flanker shirt, while prop Andrea Lo Cicero and hooker Carlo Festuccia both start after coming on as replacements in the 76-14 thrashing by New Zealand on Saturday.

"We have three games in 11 days, so it's a tough schedule," said Berbizier. "We changed the half-backs for Romania for a bit of balance, to keep up the continuity of the team and add a bit of freshness to regenerate the team."

The French coach said his team was ready for a bruising battle against the Romanians, who won their last encounter against the Azzurri 25-24 in Bucharest in June 2006.

"International matches are always physical," he said. "Romania will be ready for battle.

"Rugby is a combat sport, and I've stressed to the players that they have to organise their game around that."

Italy go on to play Portugal on September 19 before rounding off pool games against Scotland 10 days later.

Stade Francais No 8 Sergio Parisse said that Italy's World Cup campaign would commence in earnest on Wednesday after the disaster against New Zealand, which saw them leak 11 tries in a one-sided contest.

"It's a shame about the All Blacks game, but we are now focused on Romania and that's where we have to start. We need to score some tries and move on from there.

"We're confident in ourselves and we think we have the team to beat Romania," he said. "We know a lot of their players because many play in the French Top-14 (first division) and it's going to be tough."

New Zealand-born Griffen expressed delight at his recall, having missed out to veteran Troncon during last season's Six Nations, when Italy posted wins over both Scotland and Wales.

"It's good to get that No 9 shirt back," the 32-year-old said. "But the important thing for us now is to win.

"We've analysed the New Zealand match. We can't change it. We just want to get the wheels back on track.

"But we've been able to take some positives out of it.

"Leave alone the first 18 minutes (by which time the All Blacks were a staggering 38-0 up) and at times we played to our game plan, went through the 15-metre channels and had space out wide and made the advantage line easily."

Griffen said those elements would be taken on for Wednesday's match at the Stade Velodrome, which he also predicted would be a forward dog-fight, at least in the opening exchanges.

"We've studied the Romania side and they're very physical. It's going to be pretty intense for our pack and in the first 15-20 minutes we're going to have to absorb everything they throw at us.

"Hopefully it'll be us getting some early points this time."

Italy:

David Bortolussi; Kaine Robertson, Gonzalo Canale, Mirco Bergamasco, Marko Stanojevic; Ramiro Pez, Paul Griffen; Sergio Parisse, Mauro Bergamasco, Josh Sole; Marco Bortolami (capt), Santiago Dellape; Martin Castrogiovanni, Carlo Festuccia, Andrea Lo Cicero

Replacements: Leonardo Ghiraldini, Matias Aguero, Valerio Bernabo, Manoa Vosawai, Alessandro Troncon, Ezio Galon, Roland de Marigny

AFP