South African-born Tobias Botes will make his first start for Italy against Six Nations opponents Ireland in Dublin on Saturday as one of four changes to the 'Azzurri' team.
Botes, who plays scrum-half for Treviso in the Celtic League, has made two substitute appearances at fly-half so far.
After replacing Australian-born Kris Burton against England in Rome last time out he missed two penalties, thus spurning the chance for a potential first victory over the reigning Six Nations champions to whom Italy lost 19-15.
Burton's tactical kicking from fly-half during that game came in for a lot of criticism, however Italy coach Jacques Brunel denied that was the only reason for the change.
He also insisted he has no concerns about Botes's place kicking.
"It's not just due to what happened against England, we have different possibilities with different players with different profiles," said the French coach.
"In the case of Botes it's part of the desire to enlarge our possibilities.
"He has to adapt to playing in this context at this level.
"We have to give him another chance because we didn't see his real kicking ability.
"He took 40 kicks yesterday and made 39 of them. If he wasn't able to kick well in the Six Nations then he wouldn't be very good in training either."
Having been left out against England, Alberto Sgarbi returns at outside centre in place of Gonzalo Canale.
The other two changes are in the front row where Michele Rizzo will make his first Six Nations appearance in place of the injured Martin Castrogiovanni.
Lorenzo Cittadini, making his first start in the tournament, is preferred to veteran Andrea Lo Cicero, who doesn't even make the bench with Fabio Stabiano given that role instead.
Italy
Andrea Masi; Giovanbattista Venditti, Tommaso Benvenuti, Alberto Sgarbi, Luke McLean; Tobias Botes, Edoardo Gori; Sergio Parisse (capt), Robert Barbieri, Alessandro Zanni; Marco Bortolami, Quintin Geldenhuys; Lorenzo Cittadini, Leonardo Ghiraldini, Michele Rizzo
Replacements: Tommaso D'Apice, Fabio Staibano, Antonio Pavanello, Simone Favaro, Fabio Semenzato, Kris Burton, Gonzalo Canale
