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