Sexton and O'Brien expected to be fit

Ireland head coach Joe Schmidt is confident Johnny Sexton and Sean O'Brien will be available for the RBS Six Nations opener against Scotland on Saturday week.

Sexton emerged as a major doubt for the February 4 clash when he limped off with a calf problem during Leinster's 24-24 Champions Cup draw with Castres on Friday night, but the fly-half is expected to return to training next week.

"Johnny took a bruised calf in to the game against Castres and it just tightened up," said Schmidt.

"There's not a lot of damage there, nothing's showing up that's overly significant. Johnny's already starting back doing a little bit.

"We'd be confident he'll be able to train next week and therefore be fully available to face Scotland."

O'Brien, meanwhile, has not played since Leinster's win over Zebre in the Guinness PRO12 after complaining of a tight calf. He had been expected to be fit for the game against Castres but the problem did not clear up in time.

Leinster head coach Leo Cullen had expressed confidence that the flanker would be available for the start of the Six Nations and Schmidt has delivered an upbeat report on his progress.

"He's slightly further ahead than Johnny," the Ireland coach said.

"We're confident he may train before the end of the week fully, but he should train fully next week."

Despite the uncertainty over Sexton's availability, Schmidt elected not to include Ian Madigan in his 40-man squad for the opening two rounds of the tournament with Ulster's Paddy Jackson and Munster's Rory Scannell providing the cover.

Despite leaving him out of his initial squad, Schmidt has intimated that Madigan, who moved to Top 14 side Bordeaux Begles in the summer, could feature later in the tournament.

"With Ian, he could only have done those two first days with us. You only get that three-day opportunity with the window. So it complicates that," Schmidt said.

"Ian had an injury earlier in the season so he hasn't had a lot of rugby really.

"I've kept in touch with Ian. He would slot back in pretty seamlessly for us, so that's still something potentially that we could look at."

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