Ireland head coach Joe Schmidt has made a raft of changes for the team’s penultimate Rugby World Cup warm-up game against Wales on Saturday.
Ireland suffered their worst ever loss to England at Twickenham last weekend conceding 57 points while only offering 15 in return.
10 players that started the game also featured in the win over the All Blacks last November but Schmidt has now made seven changes with captain Rory Best dropped from the matchday squad in place of Niall Scannell.
Meanwhile David Kilcoyne and John Ryan will pack down either side of Best while James Ryan will partner Iain Henderson just behind them.
Munster blindside Peter O’Mahony moves to the openside with clubmate Tadhg Beirne slipping into the blindside while Jack Conan comes in at number eight.
In the halves Kieran Marmion will join Jack Carty with Chris Farrell and Bundee Aki lining up outside him in the centres.
Jacob Stockdale, Andrew Conway and Will Addison will round out the back three with Stockdale and Conway lining out on the wings while Addison will start from full-back.
Here's the Ireland team to play Wales on Saturday afternoon.#ShoulderToShoulder #WALvIRE pic.twitter.com/4cRDt0cYLp
— Irish Rugby (@IrishRugby) August 29, 2019
Ireland will head to Cardiff for the first of two warm-up games against Wales, with the second game scheduled for Dublin the following weekend, but Schmidt indicated on Tuesday that his selection decision will be effectively made following this weekend’s match.
“We are still in what we would determine as a building phase, a clarification phase for selection and once this weekend is over effectively selections are done,” said Schmidt.
“Sunday will be a day of sitting down and making sure we can get the selection as well balanced as we can make it to get the right people to then springboard into that final game against Wales and then onto the World Cup.”
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