Caelan Doris to captain Ireland as Farrell makes six changes for Italy

Caelan Doris will captain Ireland for Sunday's Guinness Six Nations clash against Italy as Andy Farrell makes six changes to his side.

Stuart McCloskey, Craig Casey, Finlay Bealham, James Ryan, Ryan Baird and Jack Conan all come into the starting line-up.

Captain Peter O'Mahony (calf), Tadhg Furlong (calf), Garry Ringrose (shoulder) and Bundee Aki (knee) were all not considered due to injury.

Ireland began the defence of their title with a 38-17 win over France last weekend.

"When I did the press conference after Marseille, I honestly didn't know that we had a few doubts," Farrell told RTÉ Sport.

"It was only until the next morning actually that these were reared up to me.

"So, Peter has got a bit of a calf injury that shouldn’t take too long, but he’s not training at all this week.

"Exactly the same for Tadhg Furlong, he’s not trained at all but we have got a couple of days training next week and they’ll both be expected for that as well, but this was too early.

"He's had a problem with the two [calves] but this is not a serious issue. I'm sure if this was a World Cup final we could try and push him to get onto the field.

"Garry Ringrose is not quite right, needs another week. He's likely to be back into training as well next week."

McCloskey comes in for Aki in the centre, while Casey is preferred over Gibson-Park at scrum-half.

"Bundee has got a rumbling knee that we can continue with this week, but it's going to continue to rumble as well," said the head coach.

"Stuart McCloskey has been going well in training so he deserves a chance and hopefully Bundee will get fit and well in the meantime."

Otherwise the back line is the same with Hugo Keenan at full-back, while Calvin Nash and James Lowe are on the wings.

Robbie Henshaw