JOHANN VAN GRAAN says Joey Carbery is “doing really well” following this morning’s news that the Munster out-half is taking the next step in his long road to recovery from an ankle injury.

Carbery hasn’t played for Munster since January of last year, but is closing in on a return to action having finally moved off the province’s rehab list, with Munster today confirming he is increasing his training load this week.

“Look he is doing really well, (he has increased his) training load… (he has) his sessions in the week,” said Van Graan.

‘There is no timeline currently, as soon as Joey, I and the medical team are convinced that he is ready to play he’ll return to play, but there is no timeline currently.”

The Munster head coach also offered an update on RG Snyman, who suffered an ACL injury just minutes into his Munster debut last August, and had recently travelled home to South Africa.

“RG was in South Africa for a few weeks. He has come back and he has done his isolation. He is back in the HPC the last few weeks.

“The injury that he has had, it is a long process. Somewhere in the coming months he will be hopefully available for selection but ACLs, some go quicker and some go slower. No real update on him, except he is doing really well and it is great to have him back at the HPC.”

Having last played on 30 January, Munster are preparing to head into a busy period of Pro14 fixtures which sees them play five weekends straight, starting with a trip to play Edinburgh on Saturday.

Ahead of that game Munster have been able to welcome back Craig Casey, Andrew Conway, Shane Daly and Chris Farrell, who have been released from Ireland camp in a bid to get some minutes under their belt this weekend.

“It’s always great to welcome national players and that’s exactly what they are: they are Test-calibre players and it is great to have Andrew, Shane, Chris and Craig back. If selected I am sure they will play a big part on Saturday. They fit in seamlessly, as they have in the autumn (when they returned from camp).”

Munster are 10 points clear at the top of Conference B in the Pro14, with just one team from each conference progressing to this season’s Pro14 final.

“We’re really excited. We had a good break and went for training last week. Some of the guys played against the Connacht Eagles last Friday, which was a good hit-out, we are on our second day of training and excited for the week,” Van Graan added. 

“Like I have said before, we have big dreams for this season and we will have to perform over the next five weeks to put us into a position for the 27 of March (Pro14 final) and a lot of work to do before we can even talk about that, because there is only one place up for grabs and we have to make sure we end up at number one.”