Ireland has received a major World Cup boost with news that Brian O'Driscoll may after all be fit to captain his country against Namibia on Sunday.

O'Driscoll appeared to be all but ruled out of the opener when he suffered a fractured sinus and damaged cheekbones after a punch in the face in Ireland's World Cup warm-up against French club Bayonne on August 16.

Initial signs were that he would miss the Namibia game and Ireland's second match against Georgia on September 15 but O'Sullivan reported that the Leinster centre had trained on Monday and that his recovery was ahead of schedule.

He told the Irish Independent: "We'll need to get a medical call on Brian playing Sunday before we finally sign off on it, but at the moment he's ahead of schedule.

"It becomes a possibility more than anything else."

O'Sullivan added: "It's a huge boost -- it could have been a lot worse but it wasn't. Once we got the good news that he was going to be out for a few weeks, it was just about trying to beat that deadline then.

"And to be fair, he's worked very hard on his fitness and on his rugby without going into contact.

"But I think we're getting very close to getting the all clear now. It's really down to the medics."

Ireland are expected to arrive at their World Cup base camp in Bordeaux on Wednesday.

AFP