Although the extent of the injury to Brian O'Driscoll's right shoulder is not as bad as first feared, the centre's participation in the Six Nations opener against Italy in Rome on Saturday week is still in doubt.

The Irish management were last night giving O'Driscoll slightly better than a 50-50 chance of playing against the Italians after a scan on his shoulder revealed an existing slight fracture, as well as severe bruising of his rotator cuff, which was sustained in the second-half of the Biarritz game on Saturday night when the Leinster centre brilliantly denied Philippe Bernat-Salles a try by beating him to a touchdown.

"It's not as serious as we first thought, which is positive news and he'll need intensive physiotherapy over the next few days before we make a decision, though there's still a doubt about his availability," said Warren Gatland last night at the team's base for their two-day session in the Castletroy Hotel in Limerick. The Irish coach intimated that they wouldn't want to delay a decision until the middle of next week, given they leave for Rome next Tuesday and wouldn't want to risk O'Driscoll aggravating the injury this early in the campaign.

"Sometimes you'd like to know one way or the other. Ideally you'd like to be able to make a decision either way. It's not something that we want to drag on to next week. If he hasn't been ruled out by Sunday you'd want him to be at least 90 per cent fit."

Gatland added: "It's a long season and you don't want to have him play on an injury. The best decision could be to rest him to make sure he's absolutely 100 per cent fit for subsequent games."

At least O'Driscoll should make the French game in Lansdowne Road on February 17th, and with the player a tad injury prone, Ireland need, as Gatland acknowledged, to have contingency plans in the event of being without him.

Ireland have been down this road before, what with the squad being similarly hit on the eve of the Americas tour by the injuries to O'Driscoll and Denis Hickie, among others. Although Ireland lost the opening Test to the Pumas in Buenos Aires by 34-23, the midfield was fairly potent. Indeed, the Irish backs accounted for three of the four tries, with Mike Mullins emerging as one of the successes of the tour.

There are at least a few midfield options available to the Irish management, for in addition to Henderson, Maggs and Mullins, Shane Horgan trained without bother yesterday despite his troublesome ankle.

"That's one position we've got a bit of depth in," Gatland said, "and Mike Mullins played against Italy and did very well for us last season, and against Scotland as well, so I'm not concerned if we have to select from Mike Mullins, Rob Henderson and Kevin Maggs. We're selecting players in form who are all playing with winning sides and who we know can do a good job for us."

Nevertheless, O'Driscoll's injury is a continuation of a debilitating list of casualties, which has already seen Ireland lose both of last season's first-choice flankers, Simon Easterby and Kieron Dawson, as well as Eric Miller, who made an impressive return at blindside against the Springboks, not to mention Hickie, the most potent winger in the country. His absence, particularly, will increase the desire to play O'Driscoll in Rome.

All that said, Gatland countered: "I really want to emphasise that injuries are part and parcel of rugby. I don't want any of the players to think, `Oh, I'm only selected because two other players are injured' or whatever. It just happens in rugby. The players who are there now are there on merit because they're the ones standing and they just need to have the confidence there from us that they can do the job.

"So long as nobody else falls down on Sunday I'll be happy enough," said Gatland dryly, in reference to Munster's European Cup quarter-final at home to Biarritz. Conceivably, as many as nine of the starting line-up in Rome could be playing this Sunday.

The Irish management had toyed with the idea of naming a starting line-up as early as today, but instead will announce a travelling squad of 23 as opposed to 22 in light of the question mark over O'Driscoll.

In which case the squad of 23 might read like this: G Dempsey, G Murphy, S Horgan, M Mullins, R Henderson, B O'Driscoll, T Howe, R O'Gara, D Humphreys, P Stringer, B O'Meara, P Clohessy, K Wood (capt), F Sheahan, J Hayes, J Fitzpatrick, M Galwey, M O'Kelly, J Davidson, A Quinlan, A Foley, D Wallace, A Ward.