Johnny Sexton has declared himself fit and "ready to go" for Ireland's final Test of the November window against Australia on Saturday.
The Ireland captain missed last week's win against Fiji after suffering a dead leg in the previous win versus South Africa, but looks set to return to the line-up when it's confirmed tomorrow. Josh van der Flier, Andrew Porter, James Ryan and Hugo Keenan also appear to be tracking well with their injury recover, having trained this week.
And while the 37-year-old has come through this week's sessions, he admits he had been "a little bit" worried about whether or not he'd recover in time to face the Wallabies.
"Last week was a bit of a struggle with swelling and fluid and stuff like that," he said.
"It was just managing that, and then making sure I get the right amount of training in this week to be able to perform but also not do too much that swells it up again.
"It's good to go, feels good and I'm ready."
With Sexton among nine of the starting team from the win against South Africa to sit out last weekend's victory against Fiji, Ireland struggled for cohesion, and their 35-17 win did not impress head coach Andy Farrell on Saturday.
Sexton says that previous World Cups have shown they need to be able to deal with injuries and adapt.
"Being able to back-up week on week is a huge part of a World Cup and obviously the South African game was incredibly physical and attritional. We had a lot of sore bodies last week, which maybe affected the performance a little bit against Fiji, so we need to look into that.
"I know when we play South Africa in the World Cup, we've got two weeks after that game before we play Scotland which is a good thing based on the last game. It's something that's part of the game - the team that generally has the best injury record through the World Cup seems to win.
"You go back to 2015 and we thought we had good depth but you lose six players in one game and suddenly, a bit like last week, you lose six players and it's a lot of changes to make the week after.
"We probably didn't cope with that [in 2015] and we didn't cope with it on Saturday as much as we would have liked.
"They're the things we need to work on but there's areas of our game from the South Africa game - I'm not putting it all down to the Fiji game - that teams are going to come after us in a different way because of whatever, if you want to say we're the number one team in the world or we've got some good results under our belt.
"They're going to come after us and try to mess us up. Over the two games so far, we haven't handled that as well as we would have liked."
On a personal level, it's been a good week for the Ireland captain, one of five members of the Irish men's side nominated at the World Rugby awards, with he and Josh van der Flier both shortlisted for the Men's Player of the Year prize.
It's the third time the out-half has been nominated for the prize, having also been on the shortlist in 2014 and 2018, the latter of which he won, joining Keith Wood as the only Irish Men's Player of the Year winners.
"It's always nice to be recognised like that, I'm not going to lie," Sexton added.
"It's not something you go searching for, but to be recognised in that area is very special.
"I would prefer a win and to play well on Saturday than win that [award], because ultimately at the end of the day it's opinion. Whereas what you produce on Saturday is what it is, what you see, and it's the only thing you can control. All my focus is on that and to be recognised is enough."
His Ireland and Leinster teammate Van der Flier is also nominated, continuing a sensational 12 months which has seen him voted best player in Ireland but both his peers and the media, as well as claiming the European Player of the Year award in May.
"It's obviously a lovely thing to be nominated for. I'm very grateful for being part of a very good team that's done well this year with Ireland and Leinster, it's a very pleasing thing to get," Van der Flier said.
"It's nice to get a reward for hard work, things have gone my way a good bit this year, getting the bounce of the ball here and there.
"It is strange, we're in the middle of a Test match week, so it's obviously a nice thing personally, but you have to switch on pretty quickly to get prepped for Australia.
"If it happened in the off-season, you'd have a bit more time to think over it, but for the moment it's focusing on trying to put in another good performance as a team this weekend."
And with Dan Sheehan and Mack Hansen up for Breakthrough Player of the Year, as well as Andy Farrell being nominated for Coach of the Year, the flanker says it's a reflection on the consistency Ireland have had in 2022.
"It's a testament to Andy [Farrell] and the coaching staff, that they've managed to bring out the best in a lot of us.
"When the team does well, everyone who is playing looks better as well, and I think having the good group, with the quality of player in each position, when you have that amount of quality it just makes everyone around them look good as well.
"I think once you have one, you get the other. It's nice, especially for Andy as well, he's been brilliant in developing the group and trying to help us improve as much as we can, so it's great for him to be nominated."
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