DUBLIN: Ireland coach Declan Kidney decided Saturday's Test against Fiji was an opportunity to give his second-string a chance to shine.

So he picked a team replete with British and Irish Lions in key positions.

It all gives an indication of the scale of the task facing Fiji, whose small squad visits Dublin to play the reigning Six Nations champions.

The last time Fiji played Ireland they lost by 47 points. But that was back when Irish rugby wasn't in the shape it is now.

Gone are the days, at least for the time being, when young players are thrown into Test rugby without experienced heads around them.

Take the example of debutant outside-half Jonathan Sexton, whose cool displays last season for European champions Leinster marked him out as Ireland's next big thing.

He now joins a back division where several men, including Ireland captain Brian O'Driscoll, have Lions experience.

"If you look at the back line, Keith Earls and Gordon D'Arcy are two Lions," said Kidney. "And Shane Horgan (a Lion in New Zealand four years ago), we've been saying how influential he was in the last Six Nations campaign as to what he can bring.

Such is the growing strength of Irish rugby, Sexton felt mildly embarrassed to be winning his first Test cap at the far from veteran age of 24.

"It feels a bit old to be making my debut when I look at some of the lads who've come before me," Sexton said.

"The likes of Luke (Fitzgerald) and Rob (Kearney) and Cian (Healy) and Earlsy," said a player who is expected to seriously challenge Ronan O'Gara for a Six Nations berth this season.

He took comfort from his provincial team-mate Eoin Reddan's selection to partner him at scrum-half and the fact that the game was being played at the Royal Dublin Showground, a new venue for Test rugby but one well-known to all Leinster players.

"We've been playing together for five or six games together now so we're getting used to each other so it will nice to have him there," Sexton said.

"There's a good few other Leinster backs outside me that'll be there to help me as well."

In all, Kidney changed eight players from the team that salvaged a 20-20 draw against Australia last weekend.

But O'Driscoll, whose last-ditch try denied the Wallabies a grand slam, and fellow mainstay Paul O'Connell, are retained.

Fiji coach Glen Ella has made five changes to the side that lost 23-10 to Scotland at Murrayfield and, with eight European-based players in the starting XV, the Pacific Islanders should front-up.

But behind the scenes all is not well, with some 15 officials among the touring party proving a burden for the cash-strapped Fijian Rugby Union (FRU).

Further strife came with the decision to abandon a 70-year-old tradition by not performing Fiji's pre-match war chant, the Cibi, against Scotland at the behest of team pastor Sam Domoni.

All this follows last month's call by Fiji's interim Prime Minister for FRU chief executive Keni Dakuidreketi, facing a corruption probe, to resign.

By rights Fiji, ranked tenth in the world, should make a contest of the match but Ireland's second-string may have something to say about that.