RUSSIA HEAD COACH Lyn Jones has made nine changes to his starting XV to face Ireland in Kobe on Thursday [KO 11.15am Irish time, eir Sport/RTÉ].
Former Blackrock College and UCD man Vasily Artemyev continues as captain from fullback as the Russians aim for a huge shock win over Joe Schmidt’s side.
32-year-old Artemyev will lead his country for the 33rd time on Thursday, while his 29 Test tries make him Russia’s all-time top try-scorer.
Artemyev is one of six players who are starting for the third time at this World Cup, along with Kirill Gotovtsev, Bogdan Fedotko, Tagir Gadzhiev, German Davydov, and Kirill Golosnitskiy also retained.
The rest of the team is rotated, however, with Ramil Gaisin coming in at out-half in place of Russia’s all-time leading points scorer, Yury Kushnarev.
Russia have lost to Japan and Samoa so far in Pool A.
Russia (v Ireland):
15. Vasily Artemyev (captain)
14. German Davydov
13. Igor Galinovskiy
12. Kirill Golosnitskiy
11. Denis Simplikevich
10. Ramil Gaisin
9. Dmitry Perov
1. Andrei Polivalov
2. Evgeny Matveev
3. Kirill Gotovtsev
4. Andrey Garbuzov
5. Bogdan Fedotko
6. Anton Sychev
7. Tagir Gadzhiev
8. Victor Gresev
Replacements:
16. Stanislav Selskii
17. Valery Morozov
18. Vladimir Podrezov
19. Andrey Ostrikov
20. Evgeny Elgin
21. Sergey Ianiushkin
22. Roman Khodin
23. Vladimir Ostroushko
Connacht to tear up the rulebook with a two score win!
A great season but this will be one step too far.
Leinster’s frontrow and front row subs will just be too strong. Added to sexton’s current form and Connacht’s biggest strengths ( their centres mainly bundee Aki coming up against Teo and Ringrose ) this will be a fairly even battle and nullify each other.
Leinster by 7
Hopefully so. Nervous about this one…
Red thumbers are out in force.
Chris, Spot on! Sexton to steady the ship and see us though. If we win, some recognition that Leinster are the top province is more than jusitified.
It might me cool if the 42 did a straw poll to see who would make a combined starting fifteenth of Connacht and Leinster
from the two teams that will be announced, Would be interested to see what the majority think.
Also would be cool to do a league version too, that would be some team, people underestimate this league.
If the majority took the poll it wouldn’t have any Leinster players. Not on merit, but just because.
Tom my side would be
1. McGrath 2. Cronin 3. Ross
4. Toner 5. Muldoon
6. Ruddock ,7 Murphy 8. Heaslip
9. Marmion 10. Sexton
11 Healy 12 Aki 13 Teo 14 Isa
15 henshaw
Sorry change that Ultan D in secondrow. Excuse the brain fart
Cronin over Tom McCartney? Jordi Murphy over Jake Heenan? Rhys Ruddock over Muldoon? Ahhhhh heeeeyyyooorrrr… I like your backline though!
Beat me to it Liam. Swap those three and it looks alright. I’d take Heenan or McKeon over Murphy any day.
Great analysis piece