England are waiting to discover whether they will be without captain Marlie Packer for their potential Grand Slam decider with France next Saturday.

Prop Hannah Botterman, 23, had already limped off with an injury and will also be assessed before their final Women's Six Nations game.

France will set up a showdown with England if they beat Wales on Sunday.

The game at Twickenham is set to be played in front of a record crowd for a women's rugby match, with ticket sales already surpassing 50,000.

"Both players picked up injuries quite early in the game, and we got them off, but we were lucky in that we were in a good position at that point," said England head coach Simon Middleton.

"The medics made a great decision to get them off the field as soon as possible so they could start looking at them, not taking risks and making it worse. We just have to assess them and see where they are at."

Packer, who took over from Sarah Hunter as captain earlier this month, scored England's bonus-point fourth try before suffering her injury.

She was replaced by Morwenna Talling at flanker and Zoe Aldcroft as captain.

Botterman had only returned to the England side against Wales a week earlier after sustaining a knee injury the day before England's World Cup semi-final last November.

Victory over France, in what will be Middleton's last game in charge, would give the Red Roses their fifth successive Six Nations title.

Leading by 27-0 at half-time, England struggled in the second half in Cork until they scored three tries in the closing minutes.

"Ireland were tenacious, they got in our faces and tried to break the game up," Middleton added. "They marked our edges really well and didn't give our wingers easy ball to carry or strike."

"But I was really pleased with how we finished the game. We were thrown off our plan but we got back on track at the end.

"We know what we need to be working on before next week, and it won't be much different from the stuff we've been doing for the last six weeks."