Fit again Jared Payne happy to fill in at centre or 15

Jared Payne took one for the team, so to speak. Well he took two, actually, tearing his quad and hamstring in the first half of the 10-9 defeat to France but remaining on the pitch for the entire game because of the carnage elsewhere, injury wise, in terms of the backline.

His selflessness meant that he missed the defeat to England at Twickenham. He didn’t put a tooth in how he felt about missing out. “I managed to tear my hamstring and my quad in the first half of that French game so the hammy came right pretty quick but the quad hung around a little longer.

“I got reasonably close to the English game but we decided not to push it too much. You can’t complain too much, you get p****d off that you’re not playing but you’ve just got to go about what you can to rehab yourself and get yourself right. You can’t push yourself too hard.

“You’ve always got to be honest with your coaches, you’ve got to tell them where you think you’re physically at, and if you don’t think you can do a job you can’t bluff your way through a Test match.

“You don’t want to let the rest of the team down so it’s important you’re honest with the coaching team and they can make their coaching decisions from there.”

There are no such injury restraints for the weekend, when Ireland face Italy at the Aviva stadium with both teams chasing a first win in this season's Six Nations Championship.

The only imponderable, at least for those outside the Irish squad and management environment, is where he'll play. In his absence against England, Ireland coach Joe Schmidt elected to switch Robbie Henshaw to outside centre and hand Stuart McCloskey a first cap.

The training ground hamstring injury suffered by Rob Kearney on Monday muddies the water slightly. His fitness may have a bearing on whether Payne wears the number 15 or 13 jerseys.

So what did he think of Ireland’s midfield partnership at Twickenham? “They were pretty good for first time out. They handled most of what England threw at them, they were both physical with their carries. For the environment they were put in for their first Test together they did very well.

“Yeah definitely Joe (Schmidt) would be silly not to look at it again. They were pretty impressive in that environment, so I’m sure there’ll be another chance to see them at some stage.”

Whether that’s Saturday will be revealed officially in the next 48 hours. Payne is used to questions about the centre v fullback conundrum and is effortlessly diplomatic in fielding enquiries. The short answer, unsurprisingly, is he’ll play wherever he’s needed.

The Italians pushed hard for victories against France and Scotland and one player who has stood out in relation to their backline in outside centre Michele Campagnaro. Payne's taken note. "Whoever marshals him will have their work cut out and it will be tough.

“He’s probably been the form 13 throughout the Six Nations I think. He’s very quick and quite surprisingly strong, so whoever’s got the job of looking after him will have a tough day.

“That would be nice to do that, but if you’re at the back (fullback) you run around a bit too. From (number) 13 out they are all pretty dangerous. You have to be on top of your game to handle that and they will really test you. I don’t know about shining at 15, you’d have to be pretty tight on your field positioning and defensive work to keep them quiet.”

The inability to finish off try scoring opportunities has been a major bugbear that’s fatally undermined Ireland’s prospects in previous matches. There is an element of frustration but Payne argues that it’s too generic and that the fault-lines change a little in reviewing those chances from match to match.

“It’s a tough one. We’re obviously searching for the answers and there’s no one thing you can put your finger on. Every situation is that bit different. So we’ve just got to work better on finishing any line-breaks that we create and any opportunities we make.”

Saturday offers another opportunity and he will be glad to be playing; wherever that is.