Right wing Kaine Robertson and centre Mirco Bergamasco both failed fitness tests after suffering hamstring injuries in training on Wednesday.

Coach John Kirwan has promoted Matteo Barbini from the bench to replace Bergamasco and brought in Roberto Pedrazzi, who was not in the original 22, on the wing.

The spare seat on the bench goes to Trevisos Walter Pozzebon.

Italy hope that Robertson could be fit for next weekend's final RBS 6 Nations match against France, but Bergamasco is expected to be out for between three and five weeks.

That means he will also miss the European Cup quarter-final between his French club Stade Francais and Newcastle.

Bergamasco's absence results in yet another change for Kirwan, who had originally moved him from the wing to replace Cristian Stoica, who was left out after a close personal friend was killed in a car accident last weekend.

He has stayed at home for the funeral and is pretty shattered, said Kirwan, who revealed that both injuries occurred in training on Wednesday.

They both happened within about 10 seconds of each other in the last two minutes of the session. We were hoping they would get through, but that hasn't happened.

You can't worry about it. It's out of our control, but I'm disappointed for the players.

The fortunate thing is that both Roberto and Matteo have been with us for some time.

They know the moves and they know the training, so the disruption to the team isn't a huge one.

Italy team for RBS 6 Nations match against England at Twickenham:

G Peens (LAquila); R Pedrazzi (Viadana), M Barbini (Padova), A Masi (Viadana), L Nitoglia (Calvisano); L Orquera (Padova), A Troncon (Treviso); A Lo Cicero (L'Aquila), F Ongaro (Treviso), S Perugini (Calvisano), CA Del Fava (Rugby Parma), M Bortolami (Narbonne, capt), A Persico (Agen), D dal Maso (Treviso), S Parisse (Treviso).

Replacements: G Intoppa (Calvisano), M Castrogiovanni (Calvisano), M Savi (Viadana), S Dellape (Agen), S Orlando (Treviso), P Griffen (Calvisano), W Pozzebon (Treviso).