Ireland wait on D'Arcy, Earls and O'Mahony

Ireland will continue to monitor the fitness of centres Gordon D’Arcy and Keith Earls and flanker Peter O’Mahony ahead of Sunday’s RBS 6 Nations clash with England.

D’Arcy has a dead leg and Earls a shoulder injury, both sustained during the 30-22 opening-day victory over Wales, with team manager Mick Kearney “guarded” over their prospects of facing Stuart Lancaster’s side.

O’Mahony was concussed at the Millennium Stadium and while he has shown no ill-effects, his involvement against England hinges on the International Rugby Board’s concussion guidelines.

Centre Brian O’Driscoll, prop Mike Ross and full-back Rob Kearney are available for selection.

England’s visit to Dublin is already being viewed as a championship decider between the only two sides who retain genuine Grand Slam ambitions after France were upstaged by Italy.

Scrum-half Conor Murray, however, believes it is too soon in the competition to start talking of title shootouts.

“You can lose a Grand Slam or Triple Crown in this game, but you can’t win it,” he said. “Even teams like Italy are stepping up to the plate this year and there will be big challenges after Sunday. It’s a big game, but it’s not a title decider.

“England are confident and have a right to be. They had a huge result against New Zealand in the autumn and then another convincing win against Scotland on Saturday.

“They have every reason to be confident and we won’t begrudge them that. They are another hugely physical team and we’re quite battered and bruised from the Wales game. They’re a bruising team who will look to beat us up at close quarters.

“But we’re happy with the way we stood up at the weekend and we’ll be confident again. We’re in a good place and we’ve taken a huge amount out of the way we played in the first half against Wales.”