Ireland’s Six Nations preparations have been hit by another blow

The last two Irish players to miss a Captain's Run were Sean O'Brien and Jared Payne. One ended up playing, the other did not.

During Thursday's team announcement for the Italy game, Ireland coach Joe Schmidt was commenting on dealing with curve-balls in match preparation when he mentioned players suffering from bugs. We thought nothing of it at the time but this afternoon's news that Rory Best sat out Ireland's final training session, in Rome, suddenly makes sense. Best sat out the Captain's Run at Stadio Olimpico today but an IRFU spokesperson assured reporters on the ground that it was merely a precaution. https://twitter.com/IrishRugby/status/830027021216530432 Best is fighting off a virus and it was thought best that he miss what would have been a light enough training session as is. Best has not been ruled out of Saturday's match [2:25pm kick-off] but the fact that Ireland's captain is missing the final run-through is far from ideal. Uncapped Munster hooker Niall Scannell is in reserve while Leinster's James Tracy is in Italy as back-up should Best not recover in time. On Thursday, Schmidt denied that Ireland were playing catch-up, despite their opening day loss to Scotland. He said:

"One of the great things about the championship is that as long as we can keep getting better we can potentially stay in control of our own destiny. "So we're not going to get too carried away and chase things we don't feel we immediately have to, we're just going to try to stay focused on this immediate challenge and do the best we can."

O'Brien and Payne missed the Friday Captain's Run before the November Series game against Australia at the Aviva Stadium. O'Brien was ruled out only hours before the game while Payne, who has not played since that 27-24 victory, only lasted 40 minutes. Ireland were delayed by 15 minutes ahead of their loss to Scotland and while Schmidt says he is keen to move on, the issue has lingered all week.