Ireland boss Andy Farrell claims his team won't be over-reliant on Johnny Sexton.
The dominant force in predecessor Joe Schmidt's team, Sexton deservedly earned the 2018 World Player of the Year award - but the 34-year-old's injury profile has worsened in recent years.
And, while a candidate for the captaincy, Sexton is facing a race to be fit for the start of the first Six Nations of Farrell's reign.
"Not just because of his age profile, but because of how we want to evolve as a team," said Farrell.
"I've been speaking to Johnny about that over the last couple of weeks and he's well on board with how we want to push forward.
“No team should be reliant on anyone. I don't think that 100 percent is the case, (but) obviously Johnny's been the star man over a few years.
"I suppose the key for anyone in our squads going forward is, how are they going to get better as a player? Hopefully Johnny's part of that as well.”
As indicated by the omission of Rob Kearney from his initial 45-strong squad get-together on Sunday and Monday, Farrell has insisted that he will pick on form.
But equally he is not ruling out a return for Kearney and other World Cup veterans, including Jordi Murphy and John Ryan, if they perform over the coming four or five weeks.
Farrell admits he will wait to decide on a new captain to replace the retired Rory Best, with Sexton, Peter O'Mahony and James Ryan apparently the front-runners.
“I’m obviously in the process because Rory is gone," he said. "Yeah, certainly a decision hasn’t been made.
"We’re going to take our time. We don’t have to make any decisions too early on that so we’ll take our time and we’ll agree in due course."
