Ulster centre Will Addison will start his second game for Ireland at full-back while Joey Carbery and John Cooney have also been named in a new-look halves partnership.
Ireland head coach Joe Schmidt has made a raft of changes for this weekend’s final November international with the USA with centre Garry Ringrose the sole survivor in the starting side that defeated New Zealand last weekend.
With two big wins over the All Blacks and Argentina now in the books, Schmidt has given a host of front-liners the week off to recover from what has been a very hefty couple of weeks with the Champions Cup ties leading straight into the November internationals.
Ireland will play a host of World Cup warm-up matches before next year but the competitiveness of the Six Nations really will prevent Joe Schmidt from trialing those on the fringes of Ireland’s squad before next year’s Rugby World Cup.
Schmidt can only take a squad of 30 players to Japan and most of the squad will have already picked itself with the 23 that lined up for the All Blacks on Saturday all but assured of making the plane.
With Conor Murray, Robbie Henshaw, Sean O’Brien and Dan Leavy all out injured, there aren’t an awful lot of spots left up for grabs so while the United States match will not do an awful lot to move the needle from a public perspective, those within Carton House this week will realise that this could be a big opportunity to make an impression on Joe Schmidt.
Ireland team to play USA
1. David Kilcoyne
2. Niall Scannell
3. Finlay Bealham
4. Tadhg Beirne
5. Iain Henderson
6. Rhys Ruddock (C)
7. Jordi Murphy
8. Jack Conan
9. John Cooney
10. Joey Carbery
11. Darren Sweetnam
12. Stuart McCloskey
13. Garry Ringrose
14. Andrew Conway
15. Will Addison
Replacements
16. Rob Herring
17. Cian Healy
18. John Ryan
19. Quinn Roux
20. Josh van der Flier
21. Luke McGrath
22. Ross Byrne
23. Sam Arnold
