Ulster back row Bryn Ward has rejoined the Ireland squad while prop Tadhg Furlong has resumed full training before Saturday’s Six Nations game against Italy (14:10 GMT).<\/p>\n
Three-time British and Irish Lions tight-head Furlong missed last week’s defeat by France in Paris with a calf problem. <\/p>\n
In a squad bulletin on Monday, the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) said “a decision will be made on his availability ahead of Thursday afternoon’s team announcement”. <\/p>\n
Furlong, 33, only made one appearance off the bench in last year’s Six Nations because of injury. <\/p>\n
Uncapped Ward was part of Ireland’s pre-tournament training camp in Portugal before linking up with the Ireland XV panel for Friday’s emphatic 52-14 loss to England A at Thomond Park. <\/p>\n
The 21-year-old back row, the son of former Ireland flanker Andy, has impressed since breaking into the Ulster team earlier this season. <\/p>\n
Ireland, who trained at Clongowes Wood College in Kildare on Monday, reported no fresh injury concerns after Thursday’s demoralising 36-14 loss to France. <\/p>\n
Italy, meanwhile, have recalled Toulouse wing Ange Capuozzo to their squad ahead of Saturday’s trip to Dublin. <\/p>\n
The 26-year-old, who has scored 16 tries in 31 Azzurri caps, has not played since December because of a finger injury.<\/p>\n
However, Italy boss Gonzalo Quesada will be without Juan Ignacio Brex because of “family reasons”. <\/p>\n
The Argentine-born Toulon centre set up Louis Lynagh’s try in Saturday’s win over Scotland in Rome.<\/p>\n
Quesada is also without scrum-half Martin Page-Relo, fly-half Tommaso Allan, back rowers Sebastian Negri and Ross Vintcent, hooker Gianmarco Lucchesi, prop Marco Riccioni and wing Edoardo Todaro. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ulster back row Bryn Ward has rejoined the Ireland squad while prop Tadhg Furlong has resumed full training…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-289066","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}