Joe Schmidt has revealed that there was no fracture sustained by fly-half Joey Carbery in Ireland’s 29-10 victory over Italy.
The 23-year-old was replaced by Jack Carty in the second half after sustaining an ankle injury – raising concern over his World Cup fitness.
Carbery contributed a try and two conversions before departing the field at the Aviva Stadium where an X-ray after the game showed no sign of a break – allowing Schmidt to breathe a sigh of relief ahead of further warm-up games against England and Wales.
“With Joey, I can say there is no fracture because we’ve had him X-rayed in there,” said the Ireland head coach.
“He has a bit of swelling, so we will let that go down and get it scanned. If we don’t think it’s too bad, he’ll rehab in Portugal ahead of the England game. If not England, hopefully, Wales.
“It’s too soon to say (for sure), but I don’t think it’ll keep him out of the World Cup.”
Another player who impressed and will be eager to secure a seat on the plane to Japan was centre Chris Farrell.
The 26-year-old has endured his fair share of injuries but appeared to be fighting fit as he set up Carbery for his try and delivered some hard-hitting carries into the Italian defence that should intensify Schmidt’s selection headache.
“We have been waiting for this for around six weeks now and training really hard in the camp so the message was really just to go out and enjoy it and put it all into practice,” said the 2018 Grand Slam champion.
“There has always been lot of pressure on this team and coming into this little mini-series that we have with Wales and England coming up it was nice to start with a win but that is not the level we want to be playing at.
“It is a winning start though and that was very important because these things are all about momentum.
“Everybody is out there trying to put their best foot forwards and fortunately we got the first chance to put our hands up (for the World Cup squad).”
