Noel Reid and Rob Herring have become the first members of Ireland's pre-World Cup squad to be released back to their provinces.

Joe Schmidt has pared his panel back to 43 by informing the duo that they would work with Leinster and Ulster respectively and could end up facing each other next week when the provinces meet in their first pre-season game.

"Two guys have gone back to their provinces this week and over the next while it'll be an ongoing process," said assistant coach Richie Murphy.

"Rob Herring has gone back to Ulster and Noel Reid has gone back to Leinster.

"We're not here just to cut players and get rid of them though.

"We'll see how that is and when we feel we're in a really good position guys will feed back to their clubs."

The New Zealander has Luke Fitzgerald, Sean Cronin and Marty Moore available for Saturday's warm-up game against Scotland, but Andrew Trimble and Cian Healy have been ruled out.

"There's no real update on him," Murphy said of Healy.

"He's progressing well is where he's at. He trained today, he's not doing full contact but he's doing more or less the whole session yesterday and today. He's progressing reasonably well, but it's a week-to-week basis with him and we just don't know where he's going to be at."

Ireland will not call up a replacement for Tommy O'Donnell whose dislocated hip rules him out of the tournament and a few more players will be cut this week although players will be monitored at their provinces.

"That's in the process of happening. There's two guys gone back to their provinces this week and over the next while, it'll be an ongoing process," Murphy said.

"We're not here just to cut players and get rid of them. We'll see how that is and when we feel we're in a really good position guys will feed back to their clubs."

"Tommy's injury is a massive blow. He had a great performance at the weekend and definitely was right up there fighting for a place in the squad. For anyone at this stage, after putting in a really gruelling five weeks of training, it's tough for him to miss out.

"It's one of those positions that we have a lot of really talented players, so it does open up opportunities for other guys. I don't think we need to look at the squad at the moment"

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