Jack Conan has sat out Ireland's Rugby World Cup training camp in Portugal this week, after suffering a foot injury in Saturday's warm-up game against Italy.
The Leinster number eight "lost power" in his foot according to head coach Andy Farrell after the game, and while it doesn't appear to be significant enough to put his World Cup in jeopardy, he's stayed behind in Dublin to rehab the issue this week.
"The only person who hasn't travelled with us from the squad is Jack Conan," defence coach Simon Easterby said on Tuesday from their camp at Quinta do Lago.
"We'll find out next week. We’re still waiting on an assessment and we decided it was probably best for him to stay back in Dublin and rehab and then we’ll get a better indication on how he is when we arrive back into camp next week."
In better news, Jimmy O'Brien and Craig Casey have both come through their injury issues from Saturday unscathed. O'Brien picked up a shoulder knock in the opening half, while Casey was dealing with a tight back. Both have trained with the squad this afternoon.
Ireland's next official warm-up game will be against England on Saturday, 19 August at the Aviva Stadium, but they will hold a training session alongside the Portuguese national side on Wednesday at The Campus.
Portugal are in Pool C of the World Cup, having qualified for the first time since 2007, and Easterby (above) says while it won't be a full game of rugby, it will be a valuable opportunity to test their attack and defence out.
"I guess it wouldn't be the first time it’s happened and it won’t be the last time it happens. Often teams collaborate with other teams and get the opportunity to do some set-piece against each other and run backline against backline.
"It certainly isn’t a full-blown game, it’s a conditioned training session which has been a collaboration between the Portuguese coaches and ourselves around trying to create a training session which is slightly different from the norm.
"When you know each other so well and you get the opportunity to train against each other for four or five weeks, you often cancel each other out in terms of what you’re trying to do in attack and defence, so this is one of those opportunities we have to connect up with the Portuguese to train against them and to challenge ourselves in a way that you normally wouldn’t do in a normal training week."
While Ireland won't be naming their 33-man squad until after their final warm-up game with Samoa on 26 August, several nations have already revealed their final squads for the tournament, including Ireland's Pool B opponents South Africa.
Head coach Jacques Nienaber produced a number of surprises in his squad, with four scrum-halves named and just seven specialist front row forwards.
And Easterby says finding the right balance can be tricky around a World Cup.
"We haven't really taken that much time to have a look at that as a group yet. We haven’t sat down and discussed it.
"These periods are tough for players in particular, for coaches, trying to find the right balance and the right combinations. World Cups will require you to be as flexible as you can be without negating the need to have real quality and out-and-out specialists in certain positions.
"The make-up of our squad will be slightly different potentially, but every squad is probably trying to find the best combinations that they can do to create the best squad.
"England and South Africa have named theirs today, New Zealand yesterday and over the next couple of weeks we will find out what other teams are doing, but we are trying to focus what we can do and get as many players as we can to the end of August and in a shout for that 33-man selection," he added.
Watch live coverage of Ireland's Rugby World Cup warm-up games v England (19 August) and Samoa (26 August) on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, listen to live commentary on RTÉ Radio, or follow a live blog on RTÉ.ie and the RTÉ News app.
