Munster have revealed that Joey Carbery will be sidelined until September as he continues to recover from injury.
The Ireland international has struggled with wrist and ankle problems since August, while preparing for the World Cup.
But any hope he had of returning by the August 22 restart have been dashed with Munster confirming that he needs more time.
The province returned to limited training in Limerick today and Carbery was not the only player missing.
Coach Johann van Graan will be without Ireland prop John Ryan for the foreseeable future after he had surgery on a shoulder problem.
Keith Earls, new signing Damian de Allende and Calvin Nash have unspecified short-term knocks.
But the trio should be on track to face Leinster in the Pro 14 clash at Aviva Stadium on August 22.
Tadhg Beirne is making steady progress from the ankle injury he sustained in December.
But although CJ Stander and Chris Cloete have returned to Ireland from South Africa, they must self-isolate for the next fortnight.
Leinster were also back on the training ground for light sessions as they build towards the August restart.
"It's good to be back," said head coach Leo Cullen. "It’s great seeing some of the faces coming in today, the guys are out there testing away which is great to see.
“They seem to have turned up in very good condition from the naked eye, so we’ll see what the numbers tell us.”
Leinster held off issuing a squad update until tomorrow as they wanted to wait for various test results on players.
But Cullen is relieved to see green shoots of recovery in rugby.
He continued: “All sports faced significant challenges and it's good to see other sports getting up and running too.
“We're trying to operate in a safe environment and hopefully the Covid statistics stay on the current trajectory as the numbers are declining and we're being guided by that.
"We’ve all had our challenges over the last few months but we seem to be getting that little bit closer.
“Full credit to everyone in the IRFU and everyone here behind the scenes who put in a huge amount of work to be able to get us to this point."
Cullen added: “It’s just baby steps at the moment and once we get closer to a game we’ll start to ramp it up a little.
“We have time to be slow and gradual but on the flip side, it won't be too far coming around and we're excited by that.”
