Sam Monaghan looks set to make a welcome return to the Ireland squad for Saturday's first home game of the Guinness Women’s Six Nations against Italy.
The former co-captain missed out on last week's opener away to England at Allianz Stadium, Twickenham, with a minor injury, but appears to be on track to feature at Dexcom Stadium this weekend.
Scrum-half Aoibheann Reilly also missed last week’s championship opener, with the Ballinasloe native hoping to return in time for a Six Nations game in her home county, although the 25-year-old remains a doubt.
Emily Lane started at scrum-half last week, with Katie Whelan making her debut off the bench, and head coach Scott Bemand may stick with that same duo for behind the scrum at Dexcom Stadium this week.
Bemand will name his team to face Italy on Thursday morning, as his side look to get their campaign up and running after a 33-12 defeat to England on Saturday.
And assistant coach Gareth Steenson insists that opening day defeat has given them a clearer picture of where they stand, as they look to win a minimum of three games in this championship.
"England was always [going to be tough], being the first game up because they're the benchmark," Steenson (below) said.
"They're the world champions, so we can kind of see where we're at and then we get ourselves into another position this week, so hopefully lessons that we have learned from last weekend's game now means that we can put a step forward this weekend against Italy."
While the 21-point defeat is the closest Ireland have come to England since 2016, they struggled in possession in the opening half, before conceding two tries in the opening quarter, which allowed the Red Roses keep them at arm’s length for the remainder of the game.
But Steenson says the players’ second half response, and their reaction in training in recent days, has shown they are not content with just keeping the scoreboard down against the best sides in the world.
"There's been a real bite around training, and the competition is there, which is what we've been trying to push.
"The conversations that we all had on Monday, we were very much challenging the girls, they were challenging themselves as well which is where we want to be.
"We want to be a competitive quad, which is going to make the squad and the team better, and this week's training has been some of the best training I've seen since I've been involved with the girls for the last couple of years, so I'm really looking forward to seeing how we go this week.
"We don't want to go and make up numbers, we want to be going into Six Nations games and we want to be going and winning games but we have to understand that to get there we have to keep going on a journey to get to that point.
"We've got three games at home, we want to win the three games at home and then we want to go over to France next week and we want to go over there and we want to be knocking and getting into that top four [in the world]," the kicking coach added.
Twelve months ago, Ireland started their championship with a similarly frustrating defeat to France in Belfast, before hammering Italy 54-12 in Parma to kick-start their campaign.
And while they are favourites pick up their first win of 2026 on Saturday evening in Galway, Steenson says they will need to be at their best against Italy, who were victorious in their most recent trip to Ireland in 2024.
"The last time Italy were in town they got a result, so if you look at what happened last year, we obviously put in a good performance away from home but we've got to back up our performance well.
"We've got to go and get our three games at home, we've got to target them and for this group to go forward and move in the right direction it has to have a little bit of pressure on us.
"I think that's a good thing, they shouldn't shy away from that," the former Exeter Chiefs out-half added.
Meanwhile, back row Jane Clohessy has been ruled out for the remained of the campaign after undergoing surgery on a broken arm, with Blackrock and Leinster forward Kate Jordan called in to train with the group.
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Follow our live blog on Ireland v Italy in the Women's Six Nations on Saturday from 5.40pm, and listen to live commentary on Saturday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
