Co-captain Sam Monaghan set to return for Ireland against Italy

Ireland have received a boost ahead of Sunday's Guinness Women's Six Nations meeting with Italy (live on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player), with Sam Monaghan on course to return from injury.

The Gloucester-Hartpury second row missed out on the opening defeat to France on Saturday as she followed the return to play protocols for a concussion, but defence coach Declan Danaher has declared the co-captain fully fit for Sunday's game at the RDS.

"Sam's good to go, so she's passed all her relevant protocols she's needed to do," he said.

"She's training and it's good to be working with her. She's an important part of our team in terms of lineout, so she's good to go."

Ruth Campbell is the only injury the Ireland management are dealing with ahead of this week's game, with the lock currently sidelined with a wrist injury.

Danaher, who joined as defence coach this season after almost 25 years as a player and coach with London Irish, has come in for praise off the back of Saturday's opening game against the French.

While Ireland gave up five tries in a 38-17 defeat, there were noticeable improvements in physicality and organisation in defence.

However, the former Ireland U19 international (below) says there's a lot of scope for improvement ahead of Sunday's visit of Italy.

"The positives are, for me, the effort and workrate and the intent we showed.

"Then from a review point of view, we've had a good look at ourselves, what we can control better, and we spoke with the girls around things like stopping driving tries, not allowing teams get that field position, but also little things around the system; when you come under pressure where you're meant to be, what you can do to stop it.

"There's been come good discussions with forwards and backs but that