Dan Sheehan and Iain Henderson have been promoted to the starting line-up for Ireland’s Rugby World Cup Pool B finale against Scotland in the Stade de France on Saturday night in the only two changes to the starting XV from the win over South Africa almost a fortnight ago.
Ronan Kelleher and James Ryan drop to the bench, where there is a call-up for the fit-again Jack Conan in what will be his first appearance of the tournament, as Ryan Baird misses out.
“He’s fit,” head coach Andy Farrell said of Ryan.
“He had a bit of a niggle on a wrist but that’s fine and he trained the house down, actually trained the best I’ve seen him train in a good amount of years yesterday.
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“He actually nearly took Johnny’s head off three or four times so he’s fit and raring to go, there’s no doubt.”
In the only other alteration to the match-day 23 for that 13-8 win over the Springboks last Saturday week at the same venue, Stuart McCloskey has been chosen to wear the number 23 jersey in place of the injured Robbie Henshaw.
Having been forced to withdraw from the opening pool win over Romania, Henshaw has again been diagnosed with a hamstring injury. This is a particularly cruel blow for the 30-year-old centre as he also missed two pool games in both the 2015 and 2019 World Cups with hamstring injuries.
“He pulled up with a hamstring unfortunately at the end of the session on Tuesday and the diagnosis with hamstrings, they want to see how things settle down,” said Farrell.
“It probably takes about five days for that type of thing to happen but it looks like it could be a minimum of a couple of weeks at this stage.”
Asked if Henshaw will remain in France, Farrell replied: “Obviously, we’ll assess that as we go.
“Certainly he’ll be around rehabbing and we’ll see how the weekend goes with other injuries, etc, and assess how Robbie’s going along the way also.”
As anticipated, Munster captain Peter O’Mahony has been named to earn his 100th international cap.
“We want to win,” said Farrell. “It’s a massive game. It’s so important to us and certainly obviously to them.
“But to the travelling fans and the people back home it’s a huge game.
“We have Iain Henderson in our group who is good at maths, so we’re across everything as far as that’s concerned.
“But the easiest way is to make sure that we perform well and deserve to win the game outright.”
Ireland: Hugo Keenan (Leinster); Mack Hansen (Connacht), Garry Ringrose (Leinster), Bundee Aki (Connacht), James Lowe (Leinster); Jonathan Sexton (Leinster)(capt), Jamison Gibson-Park (Leinster); Andrew Porter (Leinster), Dan Sheehan (Leinster), Tadhg Furlong (Leinster); Tadhg Beirne (Munster), Iain Henderson (Ulster); Peter O’Mahony (Munster), Josh van der Flier (Leinster), Caelan Doris (Leinster).
Replacements: Ronan Kelleher (Leinster), Dave Kilcoyne (Munster), Finlay Bealham (Connacht), James Ryan (Leinster), Jack Conan (Leinster), Conor Murray (Munster), Jack Crowley (Munster), Stuart McCloskey (Ulster).
