Source: Dan Sheridan/INPHO

THE TOE’S NEVER felt better, but the rest of the body is being put through the ringer.

With the first warm-up game for the World Cup now days away, rather than weeks, the intensity in training is building appropriately.

After the guts of a season out injured, Andrew Trimble has slowly immersed himself back into the Irish camp.

Before he stepped foot on the training pitch, he had to get the mind active. He may be 30-years-old, but he still gets homework. Reminding himself of the moves and the calls and gameplan is all part of the process.

And then the physical work comes.

“I didn’t get an operation on my lungs, and they don’t seem to be working quite so good!” he jokes at the launch of Ulster’s new Kukri jerseys in Belfast.

“The foot’s fine, no bother with that at all, it’s just the training load, the amount of running and physicality, hitting bags and changing direction is really taking its toll and it’s been very, very tough, but we’ve given ourselves a chance of being in really good shape.”

Aside from the initial sessions when he was easing himself back into action, it’s been business as usual for the Ulster wing in training. Joe Schmidt may not have his troops sleeping in altitude chambers or wasting away in the dead heat of the Middle-East, but Trimble says he’s certainly making them sweat.

Those present at the open training session in Cork on Wednesday will back him up on it.

“Week five now and it’s been pretty much plain sailing the whole time. As the intensity of the sessions has increased I’ve been able to do more and more and the last two or three weeks I’ve been doing everything everybody’s been doing.

Source: PRESSEYE/Matt Mackey/INPHO

“The sessions have been tough, really really tough, especially the last Tuesday and Wednesday, the open session down in Cork. Joe’s cracking the whip and being as vocal as he always is, getting the intensity of the session high, and it’s probably one of the toughest sessions I’ve ever done, never mind conditioning sessions.”

With a queue to get onto the Irish wing as long as that of Copper Face Jack’s on All-Ireland final night, every little chance to impress the big man is one Trimble and his teammates are hoping to take.

Spaces are limited, and the competition for places has made each man work harder than the next. The knock-on effect; savage training sessions. Take it or leave it.

If Joe’s been impressed, he’s got a good poker face to keep the squad guessing and then second-guessing. Nobody’s seeing those cards until he’s ready to show his hand.

“There’s not been a lot of personal feedback really, from my point of view. I got in on day one and my first week was a little bit of a feeler, I was doing a couple of sessions, and then dropping out doing my own sessions, and really by the end of week two I was doing the same as everybody else.

Trimble last featured for Ireland during the 2014 Argentina tour, due to a long-term toe injury. Source: Dan Sheridan/INPHO

“Joe sends out the same messages that he sends to everyone, or every winger, about the basics and being efficient, your kicking and passing, just everything has to be 100 percent or he’d be very hard on you. Everybody’s bought into that and the standard of sessions has gone through the roof, so hopefully I can contribute to that.”

“He’s created a very competitive environment where everybody is trying to get the edge on everybody else, and I think that’s just going to bring out the best in everybody,” he says.

He may not be able to read Schmidt’s mind, but he’s aware how it works.

Like the old cliché goes, the team must be greater than the sum of its parts, and generally speaking that’s the Schmidt ethos.

There may be 31-men boarding a plane across the Irish Sea next month, but you can bet your life that none will dare call themselves passengers.

“I don’t know where this came from, but someone described Joe: ‘He values someone who makes other player look good,’ so you do that by doing what you’re told, by learning the gameplan, learning the patterns, learning your role or being effective in everything you do.

“Everybody has the World Cup in the back of their heads but everybody wants to get on the plane first.”