Ireland have dismissed any fears that Sam Prendergast is a doubt for Saturday's Guinness Six Nations opener against England.
The out-half carried heavy strapping on his left leg as the team trained on Monday at their camp in Portugal, with assistant coach Andrew Goodman confirming the player had been dealing with a dead leg.
The 21-year-old did train fully, along with the rest of the 40-man group, and Ireland’s attack coach appeared confident there would be no risk of Prendergast missing Saturday’s championship opener at the Aviva.
"Yeah, he trained fully today, just a little dead leg I believe. I'm sure he'll be alright," Goodman said following Tuesday's session at The Campus.
Prendergast made his debut for Ireland in their November win against Argentina, before going on to start the next two wins against Fiji and Australia.
The Kildare native has also climbed above Ciarán Frawley and Ross Byrne to the top of Leinster's out-half depth chart this season.
And having worked with the former Ireland Under-20 star in his previous job at Leinster, Goodman (below) has seen how quickly Prendergast is developing week on week.
"It's been a great couple of months for Sam, just the game experience he's managed to gather up both with Ireland, first with Emerging Ireland, then Ireland, then some big Champions Cup games away to La Rochelle, home to Bath, so it's been a great period for him to get real game experience.
"I know he valued the time at Leinster when he was training alongside the senior squad as an academy member but to get out there and feel it for himself, there's been huge growth in his game."
Should that minor knock become an issue later in the week, Jack Crowley would most likely take the starting 10 shirt, which he wore for the majority of 2024.
Along with Prendergast and Crowley, Ireland have versatile Leinster back Ciarán Frawley competing for time at out-half, and Goodman believes that competition can only serve to improve all three players.
"The three of them are all great lads, first and foremost, and they all work well together.
"As I said, they're competing hard on the field but the pleasing thing is you go back to the hotel and they're sitting around the computers together going through clips and they're driving the team well. It's great to see and I'm sure they'll all have great Test careers ahead.
"There's some great competition out there [across the team], the boys are pushing each other hard so with a pretty fully-fit squad apart from Tadhg [Furlong] unfortunately leaving us earlier in the week, there's guys pushing each other and fighting hard for positions but doing it in the right way, pushing each other and competing."
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