Team for Tonga picked out of 'respect' says Farrell

Andy Farrell says his selection for Ireland's second World Cup game was built around respect for Tonga, the competition and his own team.

With a massive clash against South Africa to come in round three next weekend, it had been thought that the head coach might rest some of his regular front-liners, while getting World Cup game time into some of the squad players who didn't feature in the win over Romania.

However, with the exception of scrum-half Jamison Gibson-Park and hooker Dan Sheehan, who had been nursing a foot injury, the team is arguably the strongest possible XV at his disposal.

Centre Robbie Henshaw and prop Dave Kilcoyne have both recovered from hamstring injuries to take their places on the bench.

He said: "Yeah, [it's a] bit of continuity from last week, it's a different game, a different challenge, Tonga, respecting the opposition is absolutely at the forefront of our minds, respecting the competition but more so respecting ourselves.

"Every game is of the same importance for us and a strong side is what we've got anyway is what we've got within the squad of 33 anyway, as I've explained last week, so here we go again.

"It's a little bit different when you've played one game and your recovery is different and you're rowing into the next week and how we've handled that has been pretty important as well.

"There's always temptation because as far as selection is concerned we go through every different type of permutation but at the end of the day it's what is right for the team.

"Finding form, that side that played last week, hadn't played together before, we get to roll onto this one and you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't, really in some circumstances but the only thing that I care about is