Ireland are going to experiment on Australia this summer

Joe Schmidt is treating Ireland's tour of Australia as a rare opportunity for the Six Nations champions to "trial things" before 2019.

Playing their first Test matches since winning the Grand Slam earlier this year, Ireland have arrived in Australia to take on the Wallabies.

And with next year's Six Nations already on the agenda, along with the subsequent World Cup, Schmidt acknowledges he will not have many further opportunities to test new combinations and tactics.

"We want to make sure this tour is another building block for what comes in the future," the coach said before travelling.

"We're going to have a big target on our forehead for [the Six Nations] next year and then obviously, beyond that, the really big tournament which follows in September and October is the World Cup.

"We don't have too many options to trial things between now and then. This will be an opportunity to do some of that. It's going to be incredibly tough and that's when you find out about players in those situations

"How do they cope? What growth can we get out of this tour to make sure that we're on a slightly stronger footing when it comes to playing Italy in Chicago [in November]?"

IRELAND squad for 2018 Summer Tour of Australia

FORWARDS (18)

Rory Best (Banbridge/Ulster) c 111 caps

Tadhg Beirne (Scarlets) uncapped

Jack Conan (Old Belvedere/Leinster) 7 caps

Sean Cronin (St Mary’s College/Leinster) 61 caps

Tadhg Furlong (Clontarf/Leinster) 23 caps

Cian Healy (Clontarf/Leinster) 78 caps

Iain Henderson (Ballynahinch/Ulster) 38 caps

Rob Herring (Ballynahinch/Ulster) 3 caps

Dan Leavy (UCD/Leinster) 9 caps

Jack McGrath (St Mary’s College/Leinster) 47 caps

Jordi Murphy (Lansdowne/Leinster) 20 caps

Peter O’Mahony (Cork Constitution/Munster) 47 caps

Andrew Porter (UCD/Leinster) 7 caps

Quinn Roux (Galwegians/Connacht) 5 caps

James Ryan (UCD/Leinster) 8 caps

John Ryan (Cork Constitution/Munster) 13 caps

CJ Stander (Shannon/Munster) 23 caps

Devin Toner (Lansdowne/Leinster) 58 caps

BACKS (14)

Bundee Aki (Galwegians/Connacht) 7 caps

Ross Byrne (UCD/Leinster) uncapped

Joey Carbery (Clontarf/Leinster) 10 caps

Andrew Conway (Garryowen/Munster) 6 caps

John Cooney (Terenure College/Ulster) 1 cap

Keith Earls (Young Munster/Munster) 67 caps

Robbie Henshaw (Buccaneers/Leinster) 33 caps

Rob Kearney (UCD/Leinster) 83 caps

Jordan Larmour (St Mary’s College/Leinster) 3 caps

Kieran Marmion (Corinthians/Connacht) 21 caps

Conor Murray (Garryowen/Munster) 64 caps

Garry Ringrose (UCD/Leinster) 13 caps

Johnny Sexton (St Mary’s College/Leinster) 73 caps

Jacob Stockdale (Ballynahinch/Ulster) 9 caps

IRELAND SUMMER TOUR 2018 FIXTURES

Saturday 9th June, 2018

Australia v IRELAND

Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane, KO 20.05 local (11.05 IRL)

Saturday 16th June, 2018

Australia v IRELAND

AAMI Park, Melbourne, KO 20.05 local (11.05 IRL)

Saturday 23rd June, 2018

Australia v Ireland

Allianz Park, Sydney KO 20.05 local (11.05 IRL)