Munster's Tadhg Beirne and Andrew Conway are on course to face Ulster in Friday night's URC quarter-final clash at Kingspan Stadium.
Beirne has been out since the Six Nations with a thigh injury but are now close to a timely return with the Reds' season on the line in Belfast, while Conway aggravated a knee issue in the province's disappointing final regular round defeat to Leinster.
"We just got off the training park just now and they completed the full session, so that was a positive step for them," said Munster's senior coach Stephen Larkham.
"We'll make a decision after Wednesday on those two."
In a further boost to Johann van Graan's side, Jean Kleyn and Neil Cronin have returned to training this week after overcoming respective neck and ankle injuries and young flanker Alex Kendellen is due to complete the return to play protocols.
"We're good," said Larkham. "It was a tough week after the Toulouse loss (in the Champions Cup quarter-finals) and gave the guys a week off after that because it took an emotional toll.
"We played some pretty good rugby and it was hard to get over that.
"Then we had Leinster, another week off and we're back in the full swing of things. It was mentally tough to get over that."
Having come so close to beating Toulouse, Munster returned to the Aviva Stadium the following weekend and were very poor in losing to what was mostly Leinster's second string2.
"The preparation for Leinster was OK, it wasn’t perfect," reflected Larkham. "We had a few changes late in the week in selection, guys having to pull out with sickness.
"Whereas Toulouse, we had a really good run-in there and we played exceptionally well. Against Leinster, we just didn’t play well.
"We didn’t execute some of the stuff that we said we were going to execute. Our attention to detail wasn’t there. Mentally, our preparation wasn’t where it needed to be compared to previous weeks.
"We can’t compare both equally. That Leinster performance is something that’s certainly disappointing. We’ve moved on and we’ve potentially three games in front of us now.
"We’ve been in finals preparations now for the last three or four games so we kind of know what it’s like and we’re putting everything into the game this weekend."
Munster will take confidence from the fact that they overcame Ulster when the sides last played in Belfast only a few weeks ago.
"It seems to be back and forth against Ulster," said Larkham. "Every time they play at Thomond Park we get up and every time we play up there they get up so it’s certainly going to be a challenge going up there with the challenge and the crowd and all that.
"That’s the disappointing thing out of that Leinster game, we had our chance not to be in this position.
"But our focus against Ulster is very similar to the last time we played against them. They’ve got a very good set-piece, both scrum and maul, particularly maul, we are very conscious of that.
"They are very good at the breakdown, they’ve got a really good tackle-completion percentage, best in the competition so they are very good defensively. They’ve got a very good kicking game as well. "
