Johnny Sexton, Robbie Henshaw and Keith Earls all sat out Ireland training in Portugal today ahead of Saturday's World Cup warm-up against England.
All three were expected to make their first appearance of the season in the Twickenham encounter but, in Sexton's case in particular, that could be delayed until next week's clash with Wales in Cardiff.
Speaking at Ireland's Quinta Do Lago trainining base, assistant coach Richie Murphy explained: "This morning Robbie Henshaw, Johnny (Sexton) sat it out with a bit of soreness, Keith Earls also sat it out.
"There's no real fears about them, it's just about managing them and getting their work-load right for possibly involvement this week and, if not, the following week.
"It's a case of what we need out of these games, they're big Test matches in their own right.
"But we are building to something that is a bigger picture and it's about getting the mix and the balance right of the getting the proper amount of work into these guys and game-time is going to be a key aspect over the next three weeks.
"We've no fears over those three guys."
Joe Schmidt has brought a 40-man squad to the Algarve and Ireland are working in hot conditions.
Murphy added: "We've been in a good place, we got here last Wednesday and worked very hard on Thursday.
"We gave the players a day off, came back in for a really tough session on Saturday. We'd another down day on Sunday.
"So, yesterday again we sort of ramped it up and had a good hit out with all of the squad.
"This morning was a case of managing a few guys with a bit of soreness and the rest of the squad training hard for the game on Saturday".
If you haven't already, be sure to like our Irish Mirror Sport and Irish Mirror GAA pages on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
