'We have the hunger and mindset to improve' - Caelan Doris backs Ireland to realise World Cup potential 

The skipper and Andy Farrell were speaking to media at Aviva Stadium on Wednesday in reaction to the 2027 Men’s Rugby World Cup draw.

Captain Caelan Doris during an Ireland Rugby media conference at the Aviva Stadium. Pic: Seb Daly/Sportsfile.

Two years out from the World Cup, and with the pool draw laid out in front of his team, Ireland captain Caelan Doris has backed Andy Farrell’s squad to realise its potential heading to Australia in 2027.

The skipper and his head coach were speaking to media at Aviva Stadium on Wednesday in reaction to the expanded 24-team, 2027 Men’s Rugby World Cup draw, which took place earlier in the day in Sydney, with Ireland top seeds in Pool D alongside second seeds and familiar foes Scotland as well as Portugal and Uruguay.

The clash with the Scots looks like the pivotal, group-deciding fixture, with the schedule, host cities and venues to be announced on February 3 next. Win that and top Pool D and the path takes the Irish into a new Round of 16 against the best third-placed team from Pools B, E and F.

If results go according to seedings that could mean one of Georgia, Spain and USA. Lose to the Scots and the prospect looks a little more difficult with Pool D’s runners-up set to face the winner of Pool E, most likely France.

The ramifications beyond that Round of 16 also offer varying possibilities, involving Argentina and England for the Pool D winners, and South Africa or New Zealand were the runners-up to get past the French.

So either way, learning the lessons of difficult November in the four remaining international windows before Australia 2027 is of paramount priority, the captain and No.8 said.

Ireland’s autumn defeats to New Zealand and more specifically at home to the back-to-back world champion Springboks raised more questions than the answers found in the victories over Japan and Australia they book-ended.

“A lot of improvement, definitely, across all areas really,” Doris said. “If you look at the four games I don’t think there was one area that was consistently amazing, maybe the breakdown was pretty good throughout.

“But there’s growth across all areas which is exciting really, and a lot of that is individuals. There’s massive belief in the plans we have, what we’re doing and what we can do.

“I’m looking at myself, I’d a good chat with Paulie (O’Connell, Ireland forwards coach) earlier in the week around some of the things I need to work on personally.

"Some of the penalties I gave away, that’s not the standard we hold ourselves to. Some of the tackle technique stuff, there’s so many areas from an individual perspective as well.

“But I do believe we have a group with the hunger and the mindset to improve and to chase down the potential individually, so that’s only going to add to the collective.”

There are 17 Tests before Ireland head into the pre-tournament warm-ups during the summer of 2027: two Six Nations campaigns and six Nations Championship fixtures plus the final-round play-off.

Farrell conceded the clock was ticking and outlined plans for a continuation of the Emerging Ireland tours and A games of the past three years between now and the World Cup, which hosts Australia are set to kick-off, potentially against Pool A rivals New Zealand, in Perth on October 1 of that year.

“It’s not a long time at all and we need to use all that wisely, that’s for sure,” Farrell said. "There’s all sorts of plans going on in the background to try and give opportunities to the people that we want to give them to.”

Pointing to half dozen players who toured South Africa with Emerging Ireland in September 2022 who made the pre-tournament training squad for France 2023 the following summer, the head coach said: “It just shows you how quickly things can change and obviously there's a plan of what you think could happen along the way, but you move with that as you go as well.”

The Ireland boss said he had taken part in a two-hour planning meeting at IRFU headquarters on Lansdowne Road immediately after the draw had been made on Wednesday morning and he agreed his stewardship of the British & Irish Lions tour Down Under last summer can give the national team an edge when they return to Australia, not just for the World Cup but next summer when they face the Wallabies in the first of their Nations Championship fixtures.

Ireland will also play Japan on Australian soil before closing out the season in New Zealand against the All Blacks but when the World Cup comes round it will be a third year in a row that Farrell and the majority of his coaches and players will have travelled to Oz.

“As far as Australia is concerned, it certainly helps with the recce. We’ve done a few of those. Look, and not just that, we’re there in the summer as well for two and a half weeks, so it’s certainly a country we know well.

“We know the psyche as well, and what the fever pitch could look like towards the latter stages and we know the travel and the jet lag that goes with that. Everyone thinks you’ve cracked it until you try to go to from Perth to Brisbane, or whatever and then it hits you again a little bit.

“So there’s all those types of different bits that those experiences during the summer will stand to us for.” While a Round of 16 fixture offers the possibility of an historic first knockout victory for Ireland, Farrell has set his team’s sights higher than even a first quarter-final win.

“Well, obviously I back myself and the rest of the coaches and the players and all the staff to go as far as we'd all hope. We'd have the ambition to win a World Cup, otherwise what's the point? To ensure that everyone else feels the same way.”