Italy play Romania in Bucharest this Saturday before the Azzurri travel to Tokyo to face Japan the following weekend.

Although Italy will play only two matches, Kirwan is still planning to experiment with tactics and personnel during the trip.

The tour will be very short but important, he said on www.federugby.it.

My project is to add new and young players to consolidate the group of 15 players which already exist from the last World Cup and RBS 6 Nations.

This tour is necessary to create an alternative XV that is able to press the first-choice team.

The team is growing more and more, especially defensively where in the last Six Nations we conceded 20 tries as opposed to the 25 tries of two years ago, he added.

The problem is that we must be able to change our attitude in different circumstances.

Last season most of the time we focused our strength on defence. Now the first step in training is to be able to play a versatile game which means switching from defence to attack as quick as possible.

Even though he will be using the tour as a chance to look at his fringe players, Kirwan will not accept anything less than victory against Romania and Japan.

We are a well-placed team which can't lose against team who are well behind us, he warned.

It doesn't matter if we are coming from a very long and hard season and without specific training for this tour.

Italys backs coach Tim Lane added: The Azzurri have a young but strong group and we see a lot of potential in it.

If we can keep the same group, in two or three years it could be a very strong team, with the possibility of performing well at the World cup in France.