Ireland fearing the worst after injury to Farrell

The sight of Garry Ringrose in Ireland gear at yesterday’s training session was heartening in and of itself but it took on far greater significance later in the afternoon when news of Chris Farrell’s ill-fortune broke.

Farrell, man-of-the-match against Wales, had been one of 20 or so senior players training with the U20s when, according to Joe Schmidt, he “just got his foot caught and twisted and then got a bit of a fright”.

It looked bad at the time though. So it proved.