Caelan Doris conducted the post-match pitch interview with the air of a man arranging his thoughts into substantive sentences on the fly, fully formed reflections rather than trite soundbites. He brought presence to the process in much the same way that he does in the match environment.
Following a change of direction in questioning from general to a more pointed inquiry about lineout woes, the psychology of the moment was not lost on a man pursuing a master’s degree in applied neuroscience.
He spoke about the noisy stadium acoustics that compromised the communication bandwidth, plausible deniability to argue against anything more ruinous, as there was no point in getting into the weeds of the issue, publicly. He didn’t take umbrage. Was it the acoustics? It may have been a factor, but likely an ancillary one. Doris demonstrated that leadership isn’t confined to 80 minutes on a pitch.
The captain excelled in Ireland’s 41-10 victory over Japan, omnipresent in their better moments and rigorously attuned to his defensive responsibility, highlighted by making a team leading 19 tackles. His carry/tackle/pass contributions were largely conspicuous to the naked eye but the figures, just under 40 combined, reinforced the impression.
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He spoke this week about resetting after he processed the disappointment of missing out on the Lions tour through injury. It included a week in California, a digital detox, and a chance to target other areas of the body, iron out the kinks, as well as rehabilitating the damaged shoulder.
Seven days after he was afforded 37 minutes off the bench against New Zealand, that mental and physical freshness was very evident at the weekend from the first seconds of the Japanese game as he fielded the kickoff and absorbed a thunderous tackle from Epineri Uluiviti. There wouldn’t be any of those in training.
Emboldened by emerging unscathed, he quickly settled into the rhythm of the match, literally and figuratively, a carry and three tackles in the first 150 seconds. An element of “whataboutery” kicks in when singling out one player as if it somehow diminishes other contributions. Jack Crowley and Sam Prendergast get to live that scenario in a green jersey in real time, as if both can’t play well in the same game.
So, in highlighting Doris’ performance, a quick note on the other members of the backrow. Nick Timoney had a super game, closing down space and time on Japanese players and was sharp in scoring his try. Ryan Baird built on last week’s outstanding display, tacking on another layer or two, particularly in his post-contact “fight”. He’s not bad in the lineout either.
Doris resembled a human ticker tape running through the centre of the game; a dominant tackle (two) here, a turnover (two) there. If his early contributions were conventional, catching a kickoff and a restart, carrying off slow ball, and racking up tackles, his part in Crowley’s highlighted another side to his game.
It was simple: hear the call, preserve the space and time the pass to send his outhalf over the try line but what Doris managed some of his team-mates struggled with subsequently. It was the Irish captain’s powerful surge through a couple of opponents earlier in the attack that gave his team front foot ball from which to launch a prolonged assault.
Two tackles in 35 seconds and then as Ireland won possession the first in line to carry the ball. On 25 minutes after Tadhg Beirne was beaten in the air to a lineout throw, Doris was the first to react in turning over the turnover. He hoovered up a tap down box-kick and just before the halftime whistle made a very important tackle on Japan left wing, Tomoki Osada.
The first 120 seconds after the restart was a continuation of where he’d left off; tackle, carry. On 46 minutes, Ireland produced a fluent attack that worked Doris free on the threshold of the Japan 22. It was a sliding door moment, he had Tommy O’Brien outside him, faced by a single defender. Doris had a slight angle on the cover.
The decision was whether to pass immediately giving O’Brien a one-on-one 15 metres from the line or to rumble forward. He chose the latter and was swallowed up. On 51 minutes Andy Farrell summoned Jack Conan and Cian Prendergast from the stands, replacing Timoney and James Ryan.
The reshuffle saw Baird go into the secondrow, Prendergast stationed at blindside flanker, Conan at number eight and Doris shifted across to openside flanker. It was almost as if the Irish coach was running a live screening of a scenario that he might look at implementing, or a version of it, over the next fortnight.
Doris has previously started two games for Ireland in the seven jersey, a World Cup warm-up match against Italy in which he scored two tries in 2023 and in a Six Nations game against the same opponents the following year. There is a tipping point in planning to counter the opposition in some capacity and focusing on what Ireland want to do. Josh van der Flier won’t be offering up his jersey.
Farrell knows where that line lies and that’s what he will reveal in the next fortnight. Baird has taken a firm grasp on the six jersey, so if they want Conan, a man who played at number eight in the last two Test series for the Lions and Doris to start in a backrow there’s going to be a little sleight of hand required from a positional sense.
