So, Jack Carty gets his chance to shine on the world stage.
What a terrific opportunity this is for the Connacht out-half, and it's one I believe he'll grab with both hands.
Ireland have made some changes but not all were forced. Johnny Sexton and Bundee Aki were left out and I think that's the right call, even if they were close enough to full fitness.
There's just no point in risking anything when Ireland have what would be considered a relatively easy run to the quarter-finals.
I’m not saying we should take the host nation lightly but no matter what way Ireland line up they should always be good enough to beat Japan.
Carty has been playing with confidence so it’s nice to see Schmidt putting his faith in him. There’s a return for Joey Carbery as well, which will come from the bench, and that's something we've all been waiting for.
Keith Earls and Rob Kearney come back into the team too. Chris Farrell had his best game in an Irish jersey for a while last week so you couldn’t say his presence weakens the team.
I must say I was shocked to see Rory Best starting again after playing 80 minutes against the Scots. It was probably pre-planned that he would play this game and rest at some stage before the quarter-final.
This is a very strong Irish side. Once they deal with the atmosphere and the hype I expect them to run out comfortable winners and create more momentum on their way to topping the pool.
It will be a completely different test of their character, going in to the game as strong favourites against a Japanese side that felt the pressure of hosting the tournament in their opening game against a very weak Russian side.
Japan looked nervous from the off, dropping the ball from the kick-off before out-half Yu Tamura was blocked down from his first clearance.
Tamura had a poor enough match by his own standards. His kicking wasn't accurate and he failed to control the game for his team. He can definitely run with the ball in hand and showed his footwork after receving a kick at one stage in the second half, launching a counter-attack from his own half.
However he put his team under a lot of pressure in the first period with a lack of execution when making his kick exits. A repeat of that sloppiness on Saturday will be ruthlessly punished.
You can’t allow a tier one team to come at you in waves without clearing your lines. The pressure will be too much and they will score points on most occasions.
Full-back Will Tupou was also feeling the nerves and didn’t deal with the aerial battle against Russia. Russian winger Kirill Golosnitskiy scored the opening try of the tournament following a blunder from Tupou.
Japan can only get better in these areas because you couldn’t imagine key players like these having such bad games again.
Japan did have some star performers last Friday, however. Centres Ryoto Nakamura and Tim Lafaele both run very intelligent lines and are key to their set-piece execution.
They both had world-class offloads in the Russian 22 to provide the spark for Japanese tries as well so Ireland’s midfield defence will have to win the contact area initially and the players on either side of these tackles must be proactive in shutting down the offload channels.
Winger Kotaro Matsushima meanwhile ran in for a hat-trick, and in the pack Shota Horie stood out as the physical leader for the hosts. He put in a number of bruising tackles and finished the game with 18 tackles.
If you look at Ireland’s stats from their warm-up games and back through the Six Nations, no hooker gets into double figures regularly. That is as a result of Ireland’s defence being much more organised so they share the work load but Horie has the ability to put himself about in defence.
Isileli Nakajima came on in the second half as well and dumped some of Russia’s one-out runners backwards so Ireland should know better than to run directly at some of the Japanese defence. A bit of footwork and a latch from other forwards should ensure that Ireland dominate the tackle line to create quick ball for the back line.
Japan did look threatening at times and they try to dictate the pace of the game with quick lineouts and a lot of movement in their set-piece and phase plays.
Ireland can’t let Japan get into their flow and need to control the pace of the game themselves by marking any quick throws and dominating the contact area. This will be made a bit easier by slowing down Japan's breakdown.
They were often a man short in their attacking rucks as a result of their formation. They use three forwards in two separate pods in the midfield and have the ability to tip the ball on to the outside forward or throw the ball back inside to the first forward if Ireland’s line speed creates dog legs in their own defence.
Ireland’s experience and decision-making around the ruck means they should get a lot of turnover opportunities, especially the likes of Josh van der Flier. The Ireland defence won’t be as disconnected as Russia’s either so these short passes shouldn’t cause as much trouble for Andy Farrell.
The pressure will be off Japan in one way after getting their first win in the tournament which might see them offer more fluidity in attack but I still can’t see them troubling Ireland too much.
They had their shock win against South Africa in the last tournament so Schmidt won’t be taking them lightly and any chance of Ireland taking the game for granted will be managed by the head coach and his backroom team in the next couple of days.
Japan look great in their highlight reel but in reality the control of their game isn’t there. I don’t think Ireland will be under too much pressure.
