Later, speaking at the mid-day press briefing at the team hotel Eddie O'Sullivan explained, He had a back spasm at the end of the warm-up this morning and is off his feet now.

" He has improved from the time it happened. It's not a tear it's just probably something that will settle down. I'm not unduly worried at the moment just have to see how it goes.

O'Sullivan continued with a run-down on other little niggles affecting the tour squad. Geordan Murphy has a slight hamstring problem from last week it's more a neural problem than a tear. It basically a pain in his hamstring and we've decided to rest him today and tomorrow. Again I wouldn't be overly concerned, I think it will settle down.

"Victor Costello bruised his knee last week, so did Reggie Corrigan so they've been out of training.

"David Wallace picked up a hip injury yesterday which again is not major and a couple of days rest will see it right.

"Malcolm (O'Kelly) has a bang on the knee from the game (Barbarians) at the weekend. He trained yesterday but it's just giving him trouble today.

They're all just precautionary things the only one I'm not sure about is Brian.

"Some players have carried their injuries in from the end of the season some from the game last weekend and we've picked up a few in training because we've been putting in a god bit of heavy work. Get a bit of the heavy stuff out of the way before we leave.