Cian Healy could play against England in Twickenham this weekend. The looosehead prop has been cleared to play having spent months recovering from an operation on his neck.
Picked by Joe Scmidt in his 31 -man squad to travel to the World Cup in Wales and England later this month, a call will be made by the team management on Thursday regarding Healy's inclusion for this week's match in London.
"He's cleared to play. He's fit to play," said Joe Schmidt on Tuesday at the team base in Kildare.
“Probably the only problem is whether he is ready to fit in and play. He’s been working a lot individually. He’s been in and out of team sessions but quite often not doing the whole session.
“So he’s acquitted himself well. We’ll confirm a decision around Thursday about Cian.
Healy underwent neck surgery in May and was named alongside Jack McGrath as the two specialist loosehead props. Tadhg Furlong, who was picked with Mike Ross and Nathan White, can play on both sides of the scrum, although is largely seen as a tighthead.
“Tadhg has been done some good work at loosehead at training,” explained Schmidt. “He was losehead when he was younger althoughit couldn’t have been too long ago because he’s still young.
“Again apart from taking six specialist props there’s not too many ways around that. We feel we have sufficient balance with two specialist tightheads and two specialist looseheads and Tadhg – who is a specialist tighthead but has covered loosehesd in the past and has trained there effectively enough for us to believe he could play there.”
