Devin Toner is winning his race to be back for the Rugby World Cup.

He's has returned to pre-season training and stepped up his recovery from a knee injury suffered in Leinster's PRO14 semi-final win against Munster last month.

The veteran second-row says has rehabilitation has been going well over the last month.

“It's great. I'd say if there was a game coming up, I'd probably be able to play. I'm not doing contact or mauling or anything. I'm just doing kind of linear running and stuff from side to side. If I had to play, I would be able to strap it up and be able to play.

“The way pre-season is, we did a hard two-week block. We have a week next week where we still have to kind of train on our own and then we are back in. When we come back in for that week, I'm hell for leather doing everything then, so it's grand. It could have been a lot worse than what it was.

Toner's told the Irish Examiner that the issue was a grade-two medial strain and that he hopes to return to contact training soon.

“To me it felt bad because I have never done my knee before. I felt a little bit of a pop, so I thought it was bad but because I was able to walk off the pitch and put weight on it, they told me it wasn't too bad.

“It was a grade-two medial. A lot of lads have done it and said it was grand and that I would be back in five or six weeks.”

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