Brian O'Driscoll says there's little evidence to suggest Johnny Sexton will suffer from rustiness when he makes his return this weekend.
The Ireland captain is expected to be involved in their Rugby World Cup opener against Romania in Bordeaux, having missed the warm-up games against Italy, England and Samoa due to suspension.
That suspension came as the out-half was recovering from a groin injury picked up in March, which means the Pool B meeting with Romania will come just shy of six months since his last competitive game.
"I always have been confident with Johnny," O'Driscoll said at an event for Guinness.
"One thing he's shown throughout his career is an ability to have a long enough stay way from the game and then hit the ground running at Six Nations or international level.
"Not many players are capable of doing that with no gametime, but he's certainly been one that's been able to do it and capable of doing it.
"There's always the added nervousness of the age profile of someone, being 38 years of age, and a long layoff, nearly six months without playing a high-octane international. They don't get more high-octane that World Cups. There will always be a nervousness around how his body reacts, not just the injury component, but we'll continue having nervousness as the competition goes on around his ability to stay on the field, because he's all-important."
Sexton is due to retire after the tournament, and O'Driscoll believes his teammate could feature in some capacity in every game of the pool stage.
"I imagine he'll start the first game[against Romania], maybe sit on the bench against Tonga then come on for 20 minutes if needs be and then we've got to start him in the biggest games in the pool, against South Africa and against Scotland.
"So it is a really big ask of Johnny at 38 years of age, but he's put himself in the mix to finally achieve something on this stage and if anyone is capable of doing it at his age, knowing his professionalism, well it is Sexto.
"We'll all be holding our breath with every impact, with every collision that he's involved in, but that hasn't been any different to the last three or four years anyway."
The former Ireland international strongly disagreed with the suggestion that Ireland should prioritise their final pool game against Scotland, and rest their key players for the third pool game against South Africa.
Wins against Romania and Tonga, as well as one win from the games versus South Africa and Scotland would almost certainly be enough to qualify for the quarter-finals, where they would face a daunting task against one of France or New Zealand.
"I wouldn't be a fan, I wouldn't be," he said, when asked if Ireland should rest their frontline players for the game against South Africa.
"You want to set your stall out. There’s a little bit of having to beat the best to beat the best. It doesn’t always work that way. Sometimes other teams can beat them along the way for you.
"It’s the message that it sends out that you’re going in half-baked into one game and the that puts pressure on you going into the Scotland game, a team who will know exactly what they might need to do.
"I think that’s dangerous territory to go down and I wouldn’t anticipate that we will be seeing that version of things from Andy Farrell to be honest."
The fact that the top-five ranked nations have all ended up on the same side of the draw has been a major talking point in the build-up to the World Cup.
While the draw was seeded, it took place in December 2020 and as such the rankings used have gone dramatically out of date.
World Rugby have pledged to hold the draw later for future tournaments and O'Driscoll, who is on the board of the Rugby World Cup, says next year's Paris Olympics played a role in this tournament's draw being so early.
"There was a nervousness and uncertainty around ticket sales, if Paris [2024 Olympics] got out ahead of the Rugby World Cup, would it impact the overall incomings of the Rugby World Cup, which we know is all important to the growth of the game over a four year period.
"That's ultimately why the decision was had. That said, it's going to change for next time out.
"It's a great shame, because having the top five teams on one side of the draw is going doesn't make sense. You don't want the best teams to be going out too early. The reality is that two of the top four teams in the world are going out at quarter-final level. Like it or lump it, it's happening.
"I suppose those on the other side of the draw, Australia, Argentina, England, Fiji, Wales, it is a nicer route to a semi-final. Then again you could always argue that you might not be quite battle hardened like the teams in 'A' and 'B' will be by the time they get to semi-finals and finals. You've got to spin the narrative positively whatever way your cards fall.
"Thankfully this circumstance won't happen again, it will be much closer so it'll be a more even keel when it comes to the distribution of the best teams across all four pools."
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