Garry Ringrose looks on course to be fit for next week's Guinness Six Nations meeting with England at Twickenham, with the centre taking a full part in this morning's open training session at the Aviva Stadium.
Ringrose is yet to feature in the championship, missing the first three games due to a shoulder injury, but now looks set to be available after stepping up to a full training load.
Hugo Keenan also appears to be making good progress on his knee injury, which kept him out of last weekend's win against Wales.
The full-back trained separately to the team as he continued his rehab work, but was given an extensive workout by the IRFU's rehab specialist Einar Einarsson.
"Hopefully by Tuesday or Wednesday he'll be training fully and give us that opportunity," attack coach Mike Catt said of Keenan's progress.
Elsewhere, Ryan Baird sat out training after a back spasm this morning, but doesn't appear to be a major doubt, while Oli Jager wasn't present at the session due to a knee injury.
With no game this weekend, Ireland will travel to Twickenham on Saturday 9 March looking to continue their push for back-to-back Grand Slams, something that has never been done in the Six Nations era.
The defending champions continued their perfect start to the championship with a third bonus-point win from three against Wales on Saturday, but it was a game in which they were left frustrated at times by an aggressive Welsh defence.
In the aftermath of the game, head coach Andy Farrell described some of their attack as "passive", and assistant coach Catt (above) says it's been an area of focus this week.
"We've had a review of the Wales game and it wasn't perfect by any means, so I think we've really realised what we need to do now over the next 10 days to prepare properly for England," he said.
"We went away from what we were really good at against Wales, and it's something that we've addressed and need to make sure we get right, hence the session today was pretty sharp.
"It's a good start, the boys will relax this weekend, but come Sunday and Monday they'll be fired up again.
"We just went through the motions a little bit [against Wales] rather than implementing the way we wanted to play, and it was a bit disappointing in certain aspects of the game.
"But we addressed it and it's something we have to get right for England, so we will."
Ireland will travel to Twickenham as huge favourites, with the hosts coming into the game off a 30-21 defeat to Scotland, in which they made 25 handling errors and committed 22 turnovers.
While it was a first defeat of the championship for Steve Borthwick's side, it followed a pair of uninspiring wins over Italy and Wales.
But Catt, who won 75 caps for England between 1994 and 2007, believes Borthwick will turn around their fortunes if given the right amount of time.
He said: "I think doing the job, especially from an attacking point of view, does take time, don't get me wrong. It’s a tough one to get, especially when you’re at the top end of the sport.
"The individuals that are there are definitely capable of causing teams (problems). They were third at the World Cup and they’re still all there barring Owen Farrell, but everyone else is there and they’re well capable.
"It is tough at that level but they’ll keep ticking along, I’ve no doubt."
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