Ciara Griffin’s impressive performance against Australia sees the UL Bohs woman and Tralee native claim a starting berth at no6 with Ashleigh Baxter at openside and captain Claire Molloy switching from seven to eight.

Nicole Cronin will replace Larissa Muldoon at scrum-half while Sene Naoupu and Katie Fitzhenry forming the centre partnership. Mairead Coyne comes in at full-back as Hannah Tyrrell switches to the wing resulting in Eimear Considine losing out.

Speaking to Irish Rugby during the build up for the Japan game, Tierney is taking nothing for granted.

“We had a really tough encounter with Australia in the opening game, and while we came away with the win, there’s a number of areas that we’ve focused on over the past two days that we will need to improve on for tomorrow’s match against Japan.

“We know that the Japanese are going to throw everything at us tomorrow evening. They’re very fit, they like to move the ball wide and they are very quick to the breakdown.

“We’ve made a number of changes to the side from the Australia game with a view to giving some players a rest from what was a very physical game, but we also want to give the other members of the squad the opportunity to show what they can do against a fast and agile Japanese team.”

Sunday’s Pool C fixture between Ireland and Japan will be broadcast live on eir Sport 2 and RTÉ Two. RTÉ 2fm will have live commentary on radio. There will be live streaming available on www.rwcwomens.com in selected regions.