Jordan Larmour the notable absentee as Ireland train hard in Athlone

One wonders whether the 20-year-old will feature for Ireland again in this championship.

Ireland took 21 players to Buccaneers RFC, in Athlone, for an intense training session. Jordan Larmour remained with Leinster. Iain Henderson, Tadhg Furlong and James Ryan all sat out the session, in front of 2,000-odd enthusiastic rugby fans. The trio should be fit to face Wales, on February 24, and Ireland are not expected to make too many changes from the matchday squad from the Italy game. Niall Scannell was the second hooker in the 21-man training squad but there was no other scrum-half aside from Conor Murray - Kieran Marmion and Luke McGrath back with their provinces. The other notable absentee was Larmour. The versatile Leinster back made his debut against Italy but is back with his province ahead of this weekend's Guinness PRO14 visit of Scarlets to The RDS. Asked in the post-training press briefing if Larmour may feel the pressure to entertain, and attack, in each outing, Schmidt replied:

"I don't think so. I've got to know Jordan over the last few years and he's not a guy who puts pressure on himself. He just loves playing the game and is excited about every challenge that comes up. "Yes, I'm sure he was nervous; first Test match, Test debut at the Aviva in a Six Nations game. That's big but at the same time what was good for Jordan was that he had Keith Earls at 13 and Rob Kearney at 15 so that gives you a bit of security. "When he came on, I think it was 35-0 so the game isn't in the balance so it was a pretty good opportunity to feed him in the environment."

There is nothing to suggest Larmour will not rejoin the Ireland squad, at Carton House, on Sunday but one gets the sense that he may be struggling to make the matchday 23 for Wales. The backline back-ups are set to be Joey Carbery, Fergus McFadden and either McGrath or Marmion. Schmidt provided an update on Robbie Henshaw [ruled out of the championship] and Tadhg Furlong [hamstring strain] too. "[Serious injury for Henshaw] was something we feared after the game, just with the mechanism of injury but you always hope against hope that something may not have happened and you get through without any serious injury but unfortunately, that shoulder isn't going to be good for another three-four months." Schmidt believes Furlong and Henderson will both be eady for the Welsh. "Tadhg has gone really well," he said. "Iain Henderson is probably a little bit ahead of him. Iain felt he could have played the second half but we took him off as a precaution.

"You saw him working with Tadhg there, he's pretty much 100%. We are just kind of staging their re-entry. Iain could have trained today but he's also played a lot of minutes so we're just managing him. "At the same time, James Ryan has also made really good progress so those two are back in the mix. Tadhg ran 75% speed today and did change of direction. He's not far away from potentially being able to train fully on Tuesday."

There was no Garry Ringrose or Sean O'Brien in Athlone either and the Wales game may come too soon for the Leinster men.