Johnny Sexton expects to play a full part in training with Ireland's squad in Portugal tomorrow and to be available for selection for the Guinness Six Nations opener against Scotland on Saturday week.
Sexton is the new captain under new head coach Andy Farrell and, speaking at the Six Nations launch in London this afternoon, the 34-year-old is optimistic that will be firing on all cylinders for the championship curtain-raiser at the Aviva Stadium, despite being out with a knee injury since December 7.
"Everything's been going to plan, so hopefully I'll take a full part in training tomorrow," said Sexton.
"I've had no setbacks, once everything goes smoothly in training I'll be available for selection. "I think everyone wants to be captain, it's an honour that I was asked to do it.
"Obviously it's a campaign by campaign thing at the moment, so we'll see how it goes over the next eight weeks."
Farrell confirmed that Jordan Larmour will also be fit for the Scotland game despite missing Leinster's final Champions Cup pool game with what the province have described as a 'minor injury'.
"We met up yesterday and had a bit of a walk-through so he was able to partake in that," said Farrell. "We'll take it day by day, it's not serious but we'll see how it goes.
""Obviously there's some new guys who are going to freshen things up, but it's not just about that, it's a matter of picking people in form.
"Ronan (Kelleher) was in good form before getting injured and Johnny was on fire as well. We have a 36-man squad ready to go."
Asked what he wanted out of his first Six Nations as the head coach, Farrell replied: "Progressing our game.
"Winning, it matters, we won't shy away from that. If I told Johnny he was going into a game to play second fiddle, he'd think I'd gone mad.
"Certain aspects will take a bit of time, but at the same time we expect to perform".
If you haven't already, be sure to like our Irish Mirror Sport and Irish Mirror GAA pages on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
