England scrum coach Neal Hatley says it is "fantastic" to have prop Mako Vunipola back in contention for Sunday's Six Nations game against Italy.
The 26-year-old missed England's first two games of the tournament against France and Wales as he recovered from a knee injury suffered in December.
However, he completed 70 minutes on his return for Saracens last Friday and is back in the England training squad ahead of the match at Twickenham.
Hatley told Sky Sports News HQ: "It is great to have him back, he has obviously been out for eight weeks.
"We have missed him, so it is fantastic to have him back.
"I think he did well [on Friday], he is ready to be back in the squad.
"It was probably a few more minutes than he thought he was going to get but I thought he did very well. He scrummaged well and was a big ball carrier for Saracens on the evening."
Vunipola may have to settle for a place on the bench on Sunday with Harlequins' Joe Marler having impressed at loosehead in his absence.
"Joe has been absolutely outstanding in the first two games," said Hatley.
"From a scrum point of view he has been instrumental in everything that we have been doing.
"And defensively I think he has found another gear. He has been defending really well, hitting hard and being aggressive at ruck time, so it is great to have both of them available.
"It depends how we want to start the game and what we feel are the potential threats Italy may pose. We will have a look at that over the next one or two days."
England's tighthead prop Dan Cole says he thinks Vunipola will quickly get back into the swing of international rugby.
"He has been involved constantly throughout this whole rehabilitation process," said Cole.
"He came in a couple of weeks ago and trained with us, just to get used to the level of intensity in training we have.
"He played 70 minutes for Saracens, he's got Italy this week, and hopefully all goes well, then a fallow week to get up to speed.
"He is a quality player, he has played a lot of international rugby, and he knows what to expect."
Mako's brother Billy is with the squad to have his fitness assessed and it is possible the No 8 may be able to return before the end of the Six Nations campaign.
"We are not sure," Hatley added. "We will probably find out something from the review, we will see where Billy is.
"We are hoping to have him back and that would be great but we will see where he is.
"It is all hands on deck otherwise. Anthony Watson trained today with the team for the first time and will do so again tomorrow."
England are hot favourites to beat the Italians and head coach Eddie Jones may be tempted to make changes but Hatley says there will be no let up in their preparations.
"I think it is about what they do in their training week," he said. "We have talked about making sure everybody earns their stripes.
"The message from Eddie has been 'get better'. We saw Italy beat South Africa in the autumn and last year, from a set-piece point of view, they caused us a few problems."
All 10 games of the British and Irish Lions tour to New Zealand will be shown live on Sky Sports, starting June 3 2017.