Italy wait anxiously on key man Dominguez

The Azzurri hold their breath. Diego Dominguez, talisman, tactical orchestrator and goalkicker extraordinary, will have to undergo a fitness test on his strained groin after Italy's final warm-up this morning before his participation against Ireland at the Stadio Flaminio in tomorrow's Six Natons opener is confirmed.

The 61-times capped 34-yearold sustained the injury against Swansea a fortnight ago, aggravated it against Pau last weekend and only resumed non-contact running yesterday, but is expected to resume kicking today. Short of playing him on crutches, and coach Brad Johnstone possibly wouldn't stop short of that, the expectation is that Dominguez will partner trusted sidekick Alesandro Troncon at half-back.

The alternative would be too grim for the Italians to contemplate even if the nominal outhalf replacement is something of Diego's personal protege, the Argentinian-born Ramiro Pez, who played for the same club in Buenos Aires as Dominguez did and joined Roma a year ago on the latter's recommendation.

Ireland's assistant coach Eddie O'Sullivan acknowledged the importance of Dominguez to the Italians. "He's worth probably 15 points a game through his boot alone," he said yesterday. "I watched him play for Stade Francais against Swansea recently and he dominated the game. He's a big game player.

"It's another challenge for us. He's a guy who can really haunt you if your discipline lets you down and you give away penalties. When we played against him last year, we kept our discipline pretty well. He only had two or three shots at goal the whole match. We'll be trying to do the same thing again."

Johnstone has resisted the temptation to throw in inexperienced youngsters where possible in his opening Italian selection. Thus the uncapped 21-year-old Treviso winger Denis Galon (the son of a former French player) misses out, as does the 22-year-old New Zealand-born back rower Aaron Persaco, who is on the bench.

Instead, the more experienced Corrado Pilat and Denis Dallan are chosen on the wings, though the back-row is still a youthful combination. The 20-year-old David Dal Maso, reckoned to be a star of the future, is promoted from the A squad for a championship debut after a couple of caps on last summer's South Pacific tour, and is flanked by the Roma captain Carlo Caione and the much thought of 21-year-old openside Mauro Bergamasco, who is sure to be more effective than the ineffectual figure who was substituted at half-time in last season's 60-13 defeat at Lansdowne Road.

An experienced tight five contains many of the usual suspects though, with the South African Wilhelmus Viser, a flanker in last season's meeting, partnering Carlo Cecchinato in the second row. Cecchinato, like Cristian Stoica, Dominguez and Troncon, figured in the two 1997 wins over Ireland. All told, Italy retain nine of the side beaten in Dublin last year.

As for Ireland, following Wednesday afternoon's hard contact session, they were obliged to move yesterday morning's session to the ground used by Italy this week due to the muddy state of their notional training ground before an obligatory rest afternoon. With everyone fit and ready, they will have a final light run-out this morning.

ITALY: A Stoica (Narbonne); C Pilat (Treviso), L Martin (Northampton), G Raineri (Roma), D Dallan (Treviso); D Dominguez (Stade Francais), A Troncon (Montferrand); A Lo Cicero (Roma), A Moscardi (Treviso, capt), A Muraro (Padova), W Visser (Treviso), C Checchinato (Treviso), C Caione (Roma), M Bergamasco (Treviso), D Dal Maso (Rovigo). Replacements: G De Carli (Roma), C Paoletti (La Rochelle), G Lanzi (Calvisano), A Persico (Viadana), F Frati (Parma), G Pozzebon (Treviso), E Gallan (Bourgoin).