Caelan Doris senses Ireland primed to deliver a statement at the World Cup

“There’s massive belief in the group going into the first game," said Dorris.

SAFE HANDS: Caelan Doris training with Ireland. Pic Credit ©INPHO/Dan Sheridan

We have seen it this summer from South Africa, France and Fiji – a complete team performance that sends ripples around rugby on the eve of the World Cup.

It has not come yet from Ireland but after three so-so wins last month Caelan Doris can sense a big performance is coming.

August 25-27 was quite a weekend of pre-tournament rugby when the Springboks demolished the All Blacks on that Friday night, followed the next day by the Fijians’ historic first victory over England. All of which preceded soon-to-be hosts France roaring past Australia to throw down the gauntlet ahead of their home World Cup.

Ireland? Well, they have not yet sent a statement that they are ready to live up to their world number one status here in France over the next eight weeks.

The Irish squad is due this morning to decamp by train from their pool-stage base in Tours, central France, to Bordeaux ahead of Saturday’s Pool B opener against Romania, with head coach Andy Farrell’s team announcement scheduled for this afternoon.

Doris is well aware Ireland have not been at their consistently sparkling best in defeating Italy, England and Samoa last month yet the No.8 feels a statement performance could come this Saturday at Stade de Bordeaux.

“Well, there’s massive belief in what we’re doing in training and I know we haven’t delivered on it in terms of a stand-out performance over the last three games,” Doris said yesterday during Ireland’s media conference in the Salle des Mariages of Tours’ grand town hall.

“There’s massive belief in the group going into the first game. Pre-season can be a bit of a funny time. There’s obviously a lot of other factors in terms of pushing ourselves fitness wise during the week, strength-wise, trying to get as fit and fast and strong as possible.

“So it’s not an excuse, but you’re not always primed for the pre-season games as you might be other ones. Different combinations, playing in slightly different positions (as Doris did at openside flanker against England), things like that.

“So it’s not quite an optimal setting and not an excuse, but I definitely think we can put in better performances going forward.” 

The message sent by the Irish management this week since their arrival in Tours has been to remember the basics, the foundations of what Ireland have done so well since Farrell’s tenure sparked to life midway through 2021. The squad has this week taken back to November 2021 specifically and what the camp views as Ireland at their attacking best under the current regime, a nine-try-to-one dismantling of Japan spearheaded by an Andrew Conway hat-trick of tries.

Ireland were superb that afternoon at Aviva Stadium and invited to pinpoint a performance that has set the level for the team to aspire to, Doris did not go back to the Grand Slam of six months ago or the series win in New Zealand of the summer of 2022 but further still.

“We actually spoke about our period in November 2021, because a lot of our new attacking shape had come in at that period and it was at the forefront of our minds and we were trying to figure it out together. There were a lot of conversations happening and people taking each other up and asking how they were doing and whatnot.

“It was conducive to being right at the forefront and we were seeing lots of positive examples, lots of not-so-good examples and so it was constantly on our minds. I think back then we were delivering on some of it potentially better than we are now.

“So, that Japan game, some of the tries we scored in November back then were top class and there’s excitement now, we’ve spoken about it this week, we’re excited about delivering on that throughout this tournament.

“We’ve shown better bits since then as well, different parts of our game but, I think it was Andrew Conway scored a try in the top right corner. We had very nice passages of play and then Jamo (Gibson-Park) puts a little grubber kick in but the attack and the lead up to that is what we’re striving to get.

“We’ve had a good few examples of that since as well but that’s one that sticks out in my mind, partly because it was Johnny (Sexton)’s hundredth (cap), it was a memorable game.” 

Reach that level again in the coming weeks and Ireland could well be making even better memories.