Jack Conan and Dave Kilcoyne on track for World Cup

Ireland's Jack Conan and Dave Kilcoyne are set to be fit for selection for the World Cup but the duo are unlikely to feature against Samoa in the final warm-up match in nine days' time.

Speaking to RTÉ Sport, head coach Andy Farrell provided an update on Leinster number eight Conan, who injured his foot against Italy, and Munster prop Dave Kilcoyne, who has a hamstring issue.

"They are short-term enough," said Farrell after naming an almost full-strength team to face England on Saturday at the Aviva Stadium (5.30pm).

"They are not fit for this week but it certainly won’t rule them out of the World Cup going forward, if selected.

"To try and get a bit of game time into these guys is [important]. Jack and Killer played in the first game, obviously, they’ve had that experience.

"I don’t think they’ll be quite fit for next week but there’s two more weeks to the World Cup, they’ll certainly be fit and will have done all the work to make sure they are physically fit to take part if and when selected for the World Cup."

Ireland beat England 29-16 last spring to claim the Grand Slam and Farrell alluded to the fact that it wasn’t their best performance of the Six Nations, something they want to put right against Steve Borthwick’s side

"England brought a lot of chaos to our performance and probably to theirs as well," he said.

"Their line speed was in your face, the set-piece is always gong to be very hard to come up against.

"Yeah, I thought we weren’t calm enough or clinical enough to play our game.

"There were opportunities and the challenge for us then, even though you were going for a Grand Slam was to take this opportunity to use it to grow as a team in the sense that we wanted to be at our best when it mattered most to us, you know,