“Johnny has trained all week. He’s absolutely fine,” Lions coach Farrell said. “Seanie is nearly there. He’s progressed really well. He’s back to a bit of straight-line running, but we’re just managing him, making sure that we don’t break him down too early. But Seanie is progressing very well.”

Farrell has spoken about the “utter devastation” he felt after the terrorist atrocity in Manchester earlier this week.

The Ireland assistant coach has been in Kildare this week in his role as British and Irish Lions defence coach as the squad continues its preparation for their 10-game, three-Test tour to New Zealand, which begins on June 3.

‘Our hearts and our prayers go out to the people of Manchester’ – Andy Farrell pic.twitter.com/5ZyMfDm5XQ

— British & Irish Lions (@lionsofficial) May 25, 2017

Yet his thoughts have never been far from his home county of Lancashire following the tragic events of last Monday night's suicide bomb attack at Manchester's MEN Arena, in which 22 people were killed and many more injured.

Speaking on Thursday after the Lions trained at Carton House, the former Wigan Rugby League hero said: “I’m from the area. I live 20 miles up the road and it’s utter devastation.

“I’ve been to that concert place many a time with my kids over time and you’d never expect anything like that to happen. Our hearts and our prayers massively go out to the people of Manchester. You just know that the people who live in the area they’ll all pull together and unite in this tragic event.”

Farrell took the question about Manchester at the start of his media conference and switching back to rugby matters and welcoming in losing club semi-finalists from clubs this week including from Leinster and Saracens was far from easy, he admitted.

“From that question to a rugby question is quite hard to deal with really,” the 41-year-old said.

“We expected a few less numbers than we had. We’ve been able to get more advancement with our plan going forward. Last week we only had one half-back, Greig Laidlaw, and to get a few more half-backs in and more organisational stuff done with ball in hand has been great for us.

“We finished off the week today with a session trying to put everything together that we’ve built over the last two weeks, and the intensity was there, as you would expect, and the competition was there, as you would expect. We have a couple of days off before we meet again next Sunday, and we’ll roll in with a good couple of weeks under our belt.”