Garry Ringrose looks likely to retain his place in the Ireland team for Friday’s game against Wales despite the return of Jared Payne.
Payne, who returned to action for Ulster on Friday night after recovering from a kidney injury picked up last November, sat out training this morning at Carton House.
The New Zealand centre was a mainstay of Joe Schmidt’s plans up to that point but, at a press briefing this morning, forwards coach Simon Easterby indicated that the 22-year-old Leinster back will keep his place for the Cardiff tie (8pm, live on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Radio 1).
“We’d all say how impressed we’ve been with Garry,” Easterby said.
“He is a young man in years but he certainly looks like he’s playing beyond his years in terms of his understanding of the game, his awareness.
"He’s an intelligent rugby player who sees things that a lot of players cant see, who’ve been around a lot longer than him.
“We’re really impressed with Garry. We’ve known for a long time that he’s something special and he hasn’t done too much wrong so he’s going pretty well.
“We’ve been pretty comfortable with what we’ve been picking so far, happy with the guys who have been playing in those positions.
“[Jared] felt pretty good at the weekend and he felt pretty sharp but he’s been a long time out of the game.
“For Jared it’s great to have him back around. Hopefully we’ll see him train on Wednesday.
“It’s bruising. It’s nothing more than that. Some players will take a little bit more to recover from games, especially when they’ve been out for so long.”
Full-back Rob Kearney trained having recovered from a groin issue.
"He came through training well today and took part in everything, happy that he’s got through the session as we’d hoped he would," said the former Ireland wing forward.
Tiernan O’Halloran, Dan Leavy and Joey Carbery, who all played for their clubs last weekend, also sat out training but had no injuries.
Live Six Nations coverage of Wales v Ireland on RTÉ Two and RTÉ Player from 7pm on Friday (KO 8pm), live radio commentary on RTÉ Radio 1 from 7.45pm and live blog on RTÉ.ie and the RTÉ News Now app.
Live coverage of Wales v Ireland (KO 11.30am) in the Women’s Six Nations on RTÉ Two and RTÉ Player from 11.15am on Saturday.
Live Six Nations coverage of Italy v France (KO 1.30pm) and England v Scotland (KO 4pm) on RTÉ Two and RTÉ Player from 1.20pm on Sunday.
Live coverage of Wales v Ireland in the Under-20 Six Nations on RTÉ Two from 6.15pm (KO 6.30pm) on Saturday.
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