Ireland prop Cian Healy may return to action towards the end of August

Ireland coach Simon Easterby says key prop Cian Healy may arrive at the World Cup without much match practice because he is recovering from neck surgery.

However, Easterby hopes the Lions front-row man might be able to feature in one of the later warm-up games.

Ireland begin their warm-up programme against Wales in Cardiff on Saturday but Healy, who has been capped 51 times, is still being monitored following neck surgery in May.

Easterby said: “It's not ideal for any player not to get game time during this period, but we have to take a view of each individual and make sure we do the right thing by them.

"Cian is progressing nicely and working week to week with the medical team.

"We're giving him the best opportunity to get right over the next couple of weeks, so we can hopefully include him towards the end of August.

"He is doing his rehabilitation programme and it's going according to plan.

"It is a week to week thing and we don't want to put too much pressure on his return.

"I think he's progressing nicely at the moment, but we're not going to put any timescale on it."

Cian is progressing nicely and working week to week with the medical team. We're giving him the best opportunity to get right over the next couple of weeks.

After Saturday's Cardiff fixture, Ireland will play Scotland, host a return match against Wales in Dublin, and then complete their World Cup build-up by travelling to Twickenham to face England.

And head coach Joe Schmidt will finalise his 31-man squad on 31 August ahead of their World Cup opener against Canada on 19 September.

Given his track record, Healy is likely to be given every chance to prove his readiness for the World Cup.

Easterby added: “The medical team are on top of things and they're pretty comfortable about how it's going.

"We have to obviously take advice from them in terms of where they feel Cian is and, at the moment, we're just taking it week to week.

"We don't want to put any more pressure on the situation.

"It's a case of him going through the rehabilitation and that will hopefully continue to improve as we go week to week.

"They're Test matches and it's important that we have guys who are fully fit.

"That will be the case with all the players who might be coming back from surgery. We'll make sure that we re-introduce them to game time as and when."