Their time together in the Ireland team may have been limited to just 15 prior appearances but Keith Earls and Luke Fitzgerald will be delighted if tomorrow’s meeting with Canada goes as well as their first joint-venture against the Canucks.

Peter Stringer would like to see either Keith Earls or Luke Fitzgerald given the chance to show off their attacking skills in the centre.

Luke Fitzgerald’s Leinster season has been ended prematurely, with the player undergoing surgery at the weekend to deal with a shoulder injury.

Luke Fitzgerald will play no further part in Leinster’s season after undergoing shoulder surgery on the weekend. However, the province are confident that he will be fit for the World Cup.

The province may have three Heineken Cups under their belt, but if they were to overcome Toulon in the Stade Velodrome on Sunday, Leinster winger Luke Fitzgerald believes it would be their biggest ever win in European competition.

For Luke Fitzgerald, as well as those who had longed to see him back in an Ireland jersey, it was worth the wait.

Scotland v Ireland

Jamie Heaslip has always stood as the most useful, and accurate, of barometers on those all-too-frequent occasions in the past when Luke Fitzgerald’s staccato Ireland career has been a topic of interest.

"Wear and tear" and a desire to freshen up a side playing its fifth Test game in six weeks has prompted Joe Schmidt's decision to draft Luke Fitzgerald and Cian Healy into the Ireland side to face Scotland on Saturday afternoon.

“Obviously there’s an awful lot of quality opposition competing for those back slots, but I felt I was pushing really hard."