The Italians mean business. They have brought almost an unchanged team that was part of the Six Nations Cup, showing their intent to win against Manu Samoa on Friday.

They are hoping to repeat the results of their last clash when Italy beat Samoa 49-17.

"We are pretty excited because we have a young team, and they did pretty well in the Six Nations and then most of the boys haven't played rugby for two months now," said Giovanbattista Venditti, team manager and former player.

Speaking to Samoa Observer, he believes that resilience makes Italy special and unique in this test match, and the test match on Friday will be a good challenge for them.

"As a young team we are still defining what the main thing is as a team, but our resilience makes these guys special," he said.

"This is going to be a good challenge against a good team like Samoa. Then of course being on tour it's a special event, it's no longer just about the rugby game but also the memories that you can make as a group of players.

"And these players because they are very young, and because of COVID they didn't travel much so this is basically their first tournament, outside of Europe, we really want to make this very special for them," he added.

The Italians started camp in Italy on 19 June before flying to New Zealand for a couple of days. 

"We started camping in the centre of Italy, we had four days over there, and then we traveled to New Zealand, so we used Auckland as a base, and we arrived here last night."

Majority of the players have played in the Six Nations with one or two debuting on Friday evening.

"Thirty-three players but twenty-eight played in the Six Nations. We have four or five players who are uncapped so this is going to be their first match. But they are ready to play their first game."

"This (heat) could be a challenge for us and for Samoa as well. But we are well prepared for that, it's still difficult sometimes," said Venditti.

Venditti is hoping for the best outcome, and they are not taking the Manu Samoa team lightly.

"We've put on the best team that we can, the Samoans are a good side, but we want to make sure we are ready for it. The players can do very well if they do what they have been training for."

Manu Samoa will take on Italy at 5 pm at Apia Park on Friday.