Jacques Nienaber hoping his 'gut' instinct on Caelan Doris's injury and Lions hopes proves wrong

GUT FEELING: Caelan Doris’ hopes of making the British and Irish Lions tour to Australia will depend on whether or not there has been any structural damage to the shoulder which the Leinster captain injured in Dublin last Saturday. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

Caelan Doris’ hopes of making the British and Irish Lions tour to Australia will depend on whether or not there has been any structural damage to the shoulder which the Leinster captain injured in Dublin last Saturday.

The Mayo man came off 23 minutes before the end of their Champions Cup semi-final defeat to Northampton Saints at the Aviva Stadium and it was duly confirmed on Monday that he had damaged the joint before his departure.

The province issued an injury update on the Bank Holiday to say that the highly-rated Ireland back row will have a procedure at some point this week. It will only be then that the extent of the injury is known.

It makes for terrible timing.

Andy Farrell names his Lions squad in London on Thursday and Doris was a shoe-in for a place. The only question was whether Farrell, who made him Ireland captain, would also hand him the armband for the famous tourists.

Under the circumstances, Leinster’s decision to put senior coach Jacques Nienaber up for media duties was a fortuitous one. The two-time World Cup-winning coach with South Africa is a qualified physio so his words carry extra weight.

“Since I have been here I don’t think he has ever come off in a game except for injury. So the moment he came off we thought it would be pretty serious. Then he saw a specialist and he is having a procedure some time this week. That will put more light on the severity of it.

“Hopefully they go in and, fingers crossed, there is not too much structural damage. If there is not too much structural damage – it is tough to say, my physio knowledge is a little bit woozy – but I would say that can be anything between 4-8 weeks.

“If there is structural damage it can go more than that, between four and six months,” said Nienaber who has been at Leinster for 18 months now. “So it depends on what they find when they go in and have a look at it.” Nienaber, whose wife is also a physio and one with more experience with shoulder injuries, agreed that the area is a tricky one to deal with given it is a ball-and-socket joint as opposed to a more straightforward hinge joint like an elbow.

All told, it leaves Doris touch-and-go, at best, to make that flight Down Under.

“Yes,” said Nienaber. “That’s why I say fingers crossed. Hopefully for him it is not that bad but you do the assessment and my gut feel when I saw him come off… I had never seen him come off with an injury so he is a hard man, in my opinion.

“When he came off my gut was that this doesn’t look good, but that is purely subjective. They will go in and scope and see what is wrong.”