Andy Farrell revealed he is counting the cost of Ireland's bruising victory over world champions South Africa after omitting a host of big names from his squad for Saturday's clash with Fiji.Skipper Johnny Sexton, vice-captain James Ryan, Irish player of the year Josh van der Flier, first-choice full-back Hugo Keenan and influential forwards Peter O'Mahony and Andrew Porter will not be involved this weekend.Head coach Farrell has made a total of nine personnel changes to his starting XV for the Fijians' visit to Dublin, including handing a debut to Munster prop Jeremy Loughman.While his rotated selection initially appeared to be an attempt to rest key performers and give peripheral players a chance ahead of an autumn finale against Australia, the Englishman insisted his hand has been forced by injuries."Some of them are impact injuries but some of them are serious enough.
We'll see how they improve."Yet he believes the unfortunate situation could serve as important preparation for a shot at World Cup glory next year in France.Asked how many of the absentees had fitness issues, he replied: "Most of them - they're all injured."Johnny, he's banged up with a bad dead leg, Josh has got something going on there, so has James Ryan, Hugo is banged up, Ports is banged up."It is what it is and this type of thing is going to happen constantly, certainly within a World Cup period, certainly when you get down to games three, four, hopefully five, six.
It's good for us."Some of them are impact injuries but some of them are serious enough. We'll see how they improve."Most of them have done nothing this week.
They're in the rehab and physio rooms so we'll see how they pull up next week."Ahead of Ireland's team announcement, scrum-half