Road to Japan.

Irish fans are still reeling from Saturday’s record defeat to old rivals England at Twickenham – but there’s been some positive news this week at least on the injury front.

Joey Carbery looks set to be fit in time for their World Cup opener against Scotland next month and could even feature against Wales in two weekends’ time, while there’s also positive news for a number of other key players.

Johnny Sexton, Robbie Henshaw and Keith Earls have all struggled for fitness in recent weeks but are all progressing well with all three expected to feature against Wales in Dublin.

Sexton could make the bench this weekend while Henshaw, who was dealing with “soreness” last week is in line to feature in the return fixture on September 7th.

The same can be said for Keith Earls who is dealing with tendonitis. He could potentially play this weekend but Schmidt looks set to hold him back another week.

“There are a few guys who may not be selected because we’re not overly concerned that they need game time,” said Schmidt yesterday when asked if Ireland had any other players unavailable this weekend.

“A guy like Keith, you could potentially put in, but then if you flare up the tendonitis, you’re back where you were before, so why take that risk?

“There are a couple of other guys who might be like that but we’ll see how guys are on Thursday and how they train, how they even present before training, so we know what they’re doing.”