Simon Easterby attempts to play down fears over Sean O’Brien’s fitness

Sean O'Brien took no part in Ireland's training session at Carton House, this morning.

Given that Ireland open their Six Nations defence against Wales in four days' time, the sight of O'Brien in his IRFU tracksuit, on the sidelines, as he teammates trained was an unwelcome one. Ireland forwards coach Simon Easterby confirmed that O'Brien sat out this morning's drills but tried to allay any fears the flanker was an injury doubt. Easterby said, "Everyone trained apart from Sean [O'Brien]. He stood out of training today, so it was more precautionary than anything. We've got Friday and Saturday, because we've got a longer week this week we're into the Sunday game. So we're in a good place, we feel pretty comfortable." He added:

"Sean's [issue] was just tight, a tight hamstring. There's nothing unusual there, it's something that he might have had in the past and other players have these things. You've just got to manage him. "He's got a down day tomorrow and he doesn't have to train again until Friday, so we're pretty comfortable with the amount of work he's got in in the early part of this week and last week to feel that we could manage his tightness."

There had been initial fears of an O'Brien illness but Easterby sounded reasonably confident that the Tullow Tank would be ready to play Sunday, if selected. Easterby also confirmed that Leinster centre Garry Ringrose had been drafted in for a few training sessions. "We haven't replaced Luke Fitzgerald yet," said Easterby, "so Garry Ringrose came in to cover for him because Leinster have no game this week. We're pretty happy with where we are in terms of guys' availability from the original squad." Asked if Ringrose would be permanently drafted into the squad, Easterby said that was not the case.

"Garry was only in currently just for today's session. He may come back in later in the week, but like I say we haven't named a full-time replacement for Luke yet."