Five-eighth Jack Carty will make just his second start for Ireland against Japan as coach Joe Schmidt made four changes to the team that comfortably beat Scotland in their Rugby World Cup opener.

Connacht’s Carty made his first start for Ireland last month but looked sharp off the bench against the Scots after Johnny Sexton came off midway through the second half after receiving a knock to the quad.

“I thought he came on and played really well against Scotland,” Schmidt said.

“That gives us confidence and just allows us to freshen guys up and work through a few combinations as we work our way through the pool and hopefully it will be a cohesive performance because it’s going to have to be against Japan because we know how good they can be.”

Sexton’s main understudy Joey Carbery has returned from injury to make the bench on Saturday in Shizuoka.

Rob Kearney and Keith Earls also recovered from the minor injuries that kept them out of the 27-3 win to return to the Irish backline where Chris Farrell comes in for inside centre Bundee Aki.

Both Aki and Peter O’Mahony returned to training this week following head injuries sustained in the opener.

Schmidt named an unchanged pack after flanker O’Mahony was able to train fully having passed his concussion assessments following a knock to the head cut his game time short against Scotland.

While the same applied to Aki, Schmidt said he probably was not due to play against Japan anyway.

Ireland:

Rob Kearney, Keith Earls, Garry Ringrose, Chris Farrell, Jacob Stockdale, Jack Carty, Conor Murray, CJ Stander, Josh van der Flier, Peter O’Mahony, James Ryan, Iain Henderson, Tadhg Furlong, Rory Best (capt), Cian Healy. Res: Sean Cronin, Dave Kilcoyne, Andrew Porter, Tadhg Beirne, Rhys Ruddock, Luke McGrath, Joey Carbery, Jordan Larmour.