Irish centre Jared Payne sat out training with the Irish squad yesterday in Carton House, with Irish management no more than hopeful that he will be fit enough to play against England in Ireland's third match of the Six Nations Championship this weekend in Twickenham.
The Irish fullback and centre is recovering from a hamstring injury he suffered playing against France.
Assistant Simon Easterby added that outhalf Johnny Sexton would be fit enough to line out having suffered a whiplash type injury against France in Stade de France 10 days ago. He also rolled his ankle in training.
Sexton trained fully on Tuesday with the Irish squad, as did Simon Zebo.
“Everyone trained fully today apart from Jared Payne,” said Easterby. “He is good. He trained probably 85-90 per cent yesterday and ran well, but we are going to give him today a bit of work with the physios and then we’ll give him until Thursday to hopefully prove his fitness.”
The doubt means that Joe Schmidt will have to have permutations in place if Payne is not fit enough to start having stuck out the game in France despite shipping the injury. Twickenham is not the place to begin an international career but Ulster centre Stuart McCloskey's name arose along with more prominent backline players.
“Yeah. We have a few combinations we could run with. Jared has been excellent in that position at 13, in attack but really in defence he has been really dominant in that area,” said Payne. “He took an early bump against the French, but he dug in really hard to stay on the pitch.
"We have other players that can fill in that position. Earlsy (Keith) has played there and Luke Marshall has played at 13 as well. We are keen to give Jared the opportunity to come through on Thursday and we can make a decision after that on what combinations will best fit if he doesn't make it."
Given England strength in the positions, Ireland may also consider playing Robbie Henshaw there. Henshaw has shown himself to be versatile at provincial level.
“Robbie has shown himself to be fairly adaptable,” agreed Easterby. “He has played at 15 for Connacht this season and at 12 for us the last couple of games so he is well able to adapt and that’s what we have to be when we have a few injuries.
“There is a difference defensively at 13 as opposed to 12, but we would feel comfortable that whatever combination we go with has time to gel. They will work with the wingers really well and they will be in a good place.”
The good news for the Irish front row is that Mike Ross and Cian Healy have both proven their fitness with Leinster. Their Test experience against their lack of play at the more intense international level is something that will focus the mind of Schmidt. Healy started against Cardiff with Ross coming into the game from the bench. But both players have shoen no adverse reaction to respective knee and hamstring problems.
The French match and Ireland’s serious scrum problems highlighted just what experience counts for both in defence and as perhaps the best attacking platform.
“We have been really happy with what we have been doing so far. In the French game we had to overcome a few technical issues, let’s say, which is something that that we did,” said a diplomatic Easterby.
“Going into this game, having those guys available to us allows us to have that little bit more experience in the front row, which we will need. We want to stay positive at scrum-time, we want to try and play off the scrum, it’s the best ball to play off in terms of having 16 players tied down to one position.
“The lineout is different again because you have players coming off the back and some teams drop a player. We focus on being positive there, as England do. Cian and Rossy coming back into the mix will only add to the scrum we already have in place.”
