Ireland flanker David Wallace is ready to put ankle injury problems behind him and spearhead the side's bid for success at the World Cup in France.

It has been close to six months since Wallace last pulled on the Irish shirt — his 37th Test cap came in the Six Nations win over Italy — and a chronic ankle injury has meant it has been a frustrating run-in to the World Cup for the 31-year-old.

Wallace has had to be patient, heeding the advice of the Ireland medical staff and missing the recent warm-up games against Scotland, Bayonne and Italy in order to prime himself for the start of Ireland's Pool D campaign on September 9th.

Back to full fitness, the strongly-built openside is determined to use his injury-enforced absence to his advantage.

"I think at the start I wasn't that worried (of the possibility of missing the World Cup) because I've have ankle troubles in the past," he said. "But as time went on and I had a little bit of a setback after three or four weeks, I did start to get a bit stressed about it.

"But it was always making steady progression after that. I was always hopeful that I'd make it. I put a lot of faith in the Ireland medical staff here and they were very good."

Wallace was able to put countless sessions on the exercise bike and rowing machine behind him last Thursday when he engaged in his first full-contact training session.

"Without doubt I've been frustrated. It's been very hard to go out and watch all the rugby sessions and you're doing all the hard, physical fitness work and you can't do the stuff you want to, and that's play rugby," he admitted.

"One thing you can take out of it is that now maybe you're a bit more eager and fresher. You'd have a bad day and it would just get swollen or very sore and you'd think 'is it ever going to get right'.

"Even up until last Thursday — because I hadn't done any real rugby type work on the training paddock — I wasn't sure if it was going to be okay. I went out and didn't even think about it once, I got stuck in. I was delighted with it."

The Munster man was a shock omission from the Irish squad for the last World Cup. His pace and ball-carrying ability were assets Ireland could have done with in Australia as they faltered at the quarter-final stage.

Now a mainstay of the Irish pack since Munster's Heineken Cup success in 2006, Wallace is craving time on the pitch in the Pool D openers against Namibia and Georgia so that he will be up to speed before Ireland's crucial clashes with hosts France and arch-rivals Argentina.

"We're doing a lot of match-type situations in training, that will help me," Wallace said. "It's not like I'll be going into the tournament totally without contact or without any match-type experience. Contact's not an issue (with the injury).

"Certainly, I need a game, it's been a few months since I've had a game. You can't help but become a bit rusty. Hopefully my form will come back quickly. The World Cup is such a big competition for us and I have to get game time."