England forward Maro Itoje has been passed fit ahead of England's crucial Six Nations encounter with Ireland at Twickenham on Saturday afternoon.
The second-row, who starts alongside Charlie Ewels had suffered an illness overnight before Friday's captain's run with Saracens teammate Nick Isiekwe waiting in the wings to replace in the squad with Joe Launchbury ready to step off the bench.
However, on Friday England coach Nick Proudfoot had been 'very optimistic' that the 54-cap man would be passed fit due to the fact that it was not COVID related.
There have been fears around COVID in the camp this week with forwards coach Richard Cockerill testing positive earlier in the week, missing the Twickenham test this weekend as a result.
Scrum coach Proudfoot spoke to the media on Friday to allay fears of Itoje's absence before his fitness was confirmed on Saturday, just hours before the game.
He said: “Maro was just a little bit sick overnight, so we are just giving him the opportunity to recover, we are just cautious today with him, but we are really optimistic he will be fine tomorrow.
“I don’t think he has a check he needs to go through. It’s more of a precautionary thing that he we didn’t get him to train. But, as I said, we are very optimistic he will get to play.
“Charlie [Ewels] and Joe Launchbury ran in the second row [at training on Friday]. We have Chessum in the squad as 25th man, so he ran there as well, and we have Nick Isiekwe on standby.
“So we are well covered, those players have been in the group right the way through the competition.”
Despite the good news, it has not been ideal preparation for England in what is a crucial Six Nations match, with any defeat ending England's title hopes.
