Henshaw good to go for Ireland's Twickenam trip

Robbie Henshaw has passed his head injury assessment return-to-play protocols and will be available for Ireland's Guinness Six Nations clash against England on Saturday week (live on RTÉ).

The Leinster and Lions centre was taken off in the second half of Ireland’s win over Italy on Sunday but took part in the squad’s open training session at the Aviva Stadium today and was declared good to go by forwards coach Paul O’Connell.

"Robbie Henshaw is fine, he has no problems," O’Connell told RTÉ Sport.

"He’s passed his return-to-play protocols so he’s had no problems."

The former Connacht man missed the opening game against Wales before featuring off the bench in the defeat to France.

He’ll likely face a battle with Bundee Aki and Garry Henshaw for a starting spot in Twickenham.

However, Andrew Porter will play no further part in the tournament after a scan on his ankle injury revealed the injury to be more serious than first thought.

O’Connell lamented the loss of the 26-year-old, who started Ireland’s last six Test matches.

"He's a big loss, he's a modern prop forward," said the former Munster lock.

"He's an excellent scrummager on both sides of the scrum but his ball-carrying, his defending for us, really good poacher, a great man for turnovers, getting penalties for us at the ruck. He's no-nonsense to coach.

"He just gets on with it, he's very easy to coach, easy to deal with so he'll be a big loss. His bench [pressing] will probably go through the roof in this period which he'll be delighted with.

"He's a big loss but the way we've been training, and we saw it in the Argentina game in the autumn when lads starting dropping out in the warm-up, and we lost James Ryan before half-time, the way we've been training, a lot of the changes