Earls, Cronin and Healy all set to miss next provincial derbies

Keith Earls' neck injury has been confirmed to be not as serious as initially feared but the injury count from Sunday's bruising affair at Thomond Park is already having an impact on Ireland's Six Nations preparations.

Earls felt a shock go through his body, a sharp pain in the chest and back, after colliding with an opponent.

Munster coach Anthony Foley stressed it was not concussion.

Both Munster and Leinster will be forced to dig into their loosehead stocks in coming weeks as James Cronin (ankle) and Cian Healy (knee) were forced off in the visitors' 24-7 victory.

Neither prop nor Earls are expected to feature in the other provincial derbies on New Year's Day (Leinster versus Connacht) and January 2nd (Ulster versus Munster).

Veteran prop

“He twisted his knee,”

Leo Cullen

said of Healy’s latest injury after the veteran prop lasted only 19 minutes.

“We’ll get it assessed. “He’s hobbling around the dressing room so obviously he’s not looking great for next week. I can’t really tell you a huge amount more than that.

“He complained about it around seven or eight minutes before he went off. There wasn’t an actual incident in the game that he remembers, so we’ll get him assessed. We’ll give him a scan tomorrow but it’s a five-day turnaround.”

Another concern is Conor Murray's hip injury while Mike Ross is already laid up for six to eight weeks with a bad hamstring tear.

Ireland will begin preparations for the defence of their Six Nations title in Carton House this Sunday. CJ Stander was unable to confirm if he will be in attendance. The Munster captain qualified through residency last October and is seemingly in the kind of form that would merit a first Test cap against Wales on February 7th.

“No, nothing,” said Stander. “I hopefully put my hand up. If I’m good enough I will get an email so we’ll leave it until it comes. I don’t even know what’s going on there. I just want to get the team back to winning ways.”