Rory Best backs Dylan Hartley to push for British and Irish Lions captaincy

Ireland captain Rory Best believes England skipper Dylan Hartley's latest six-week ban might not affect his chances of leading British and Irish Lions in a gruelling tour of New Zealand in June

Hartley was slammed with a six-week ban while playing for his club Northampton Saints after he performed a stiff arm tackle on Leinster flanker Sean O'Brien during their European Champions Cup encounter which takes his overall tally of suspension to 60 weeks.

England coach Eddie Jones had put his fitness to test in a stimulated match on Wednesday ahead of the Six Nations 2017 tournament and Best, who himself is among the front-runners to take up the role said the 30-year-old still has time on his hand to push his case for selection as captain for the Lions tour of New Zealand considering his track record in the last one-year.

"Dylan's not injured, so he has an opportunity to get a good block of training done without getting beaten up every week in a match situation," Best told Press Association Sport.

"So from that side of things, when you get to March and the shake-up in the Six Nations for the last two rounds of that, you'd be going a long way to say that his ban from December would be dictating events."

Under Jones and Hartley combination, England clinched the Grand Slam for the first time in 13 years during last year's Six Nations tournament, whitewashed Wallabies in Australia for the first time and ended the autumn internationals without a defeat.

It was during the 2013 British and Irish Lions tour of Australia, Best was added to the squad as a replacement for Hartley after the Northampton hooker was handed a red card in the Aviva Premiership final for abusing an official.

Best insisted that Lions head coach Warren Gatland's decision to overlook the 34-year-old initially did not go well with him. However, he further added that he is not looking too much into his selection in the upcoming tour of New Zealand.

"Something I probably learned four years ago the hard way is that if you start listening to people telling you you are there and thereabouts, you forget about what's vitally important, and that's what is right in front of you," said Best.

"Everyone is very well-meaning when talking about things like the Lions, but four years ago it was tough not being involved in the initial squad.

"Mentally it was very hard. If you start to look ahead to things like Lions squads now, you'll forget about the game this weekend.

"And if your form suffers you don't need to worry about the captaincy, because you're not going to be in the squad.

"It's such a competitive thing. It's something I'm not really interested in talking about: I'm worried about performing to the best of my ability for Ulster and Ireland.

"And of course we're focused fully on Ulster until the end of January."