Sidelined.

Ireland outhalf Joey Carbery picked up a worrying ankle injury on Saturday afternoon in their World Cup warm-up win over Italy at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin.

The 23-year-old hurt his ankle in the 50th minute of the game while tackling Italian forward Jim Tuivaiti and left the field on a cart.

After the game head coach Joe Schmidt confirmed there was no fracture, but was confident Carbery would not miss the World Cup in Japan.

“With Joey (Carbery) the good thing is that I can say there is no fracture because we have had him x-rayed, but there is a bit of swelling to that ankle, so we are probably going to have to let that go down a bit over the next 24-48 hours, then probably get that scanned or if we don’t think it is too bad he will work away rehabbing in Portugal, working his way forward to England, if not England, hopefully Wales.” Schmidt said

“It is too soon to say, but I don’t think it is going to keep him out of the World Cup.”

But our friends over at RugbyPass have revealed that Carbery should indeed be back in action in time for the World Cup, but could be unavailable for the opening game with Scotland.

Carbery is set to be out of action for around six weeks, with the Scotland game on September 22 perhaps coming a little too soon for the Munster man. Should he struggle to gain match fitness, he could also miss the game against Japan six days later.

A huge blow for Ireland should the news be officially confirmed by the IRFU.