All about 'continuing to grow' for Caelan Doris and Ireland 

LEADING THE PACK: Caelan Doris during an Ireland training session. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

Caelan Doris has insisted his Ireland team still has plenty of room for growth as it looks to build on its record victory over England at Twickenham last time out with an even better performance at home against Wales on Friday night.

The No.8 and captain was one of several Irish players to put in their best performances of the season as the English were put to the sword on home soil in a 42-21 defeat on February 21. 

Yet while that has provided momentum for Ireland’s remaining two matches of the 2026 Guinness Six Nations, both at home in Dublin against the Welsh and Scotland with a Triple Crown still up for grabs, the skipper want the side to back up their Twickenham performance for it to have any meaning long-term.

“Obviously there's a positive feeling after a good performance like that but it's about the bigger picture, really, and it's about continuing to grow,” Doris said on Thursday following a rain-hit captain’s run training session at Aviva Stadium.

“We know we're nowhere near our potential as a team and there's a lot of hard work to be put in, and there's a long journey for us to go on still. It was back to hard work, back to the learnings from the game, of which there were some, as well as some good stuff. It's just about building on it.

“Yeah, definitely. Obviously there's a positive feeling off a good performance like that but it's about the bigger picture really and it's about continuing to grow.” 

Doris played down talk of a potential Triple Crown as he remained focused on the immediate task at hand with a Wales team coming to Dublin still winless after a 14th consecutive Six Nations defeat in round three, a 26-23 loss at home to Scotland.

“It's game by game. It's about performances really, to be honest with you. It's about building on what we showed in Twickenham.

“There's a lot of hard work gone in over the last couple of weeks since then and some really good training days. We've trained here against the (Ireland Under-) 20s, which was good to get a run against them. It's just continuing the growth of this team.

“We've got a pretty clear plan of where we want to go in terms of structures and the way we want to play and it's about chasing that down week on week.” 

The Ireland captain is preparing to face a Wales side he believes are making incremental gains through their performances in the championship to date. 

Steve Tandy’s side lost 48-7 to England at Twickenham in the opening round and 54-12 to France in Cardiff eight days later before restoring some pride against the Scots, also at the Principality Stadium.

“I think they've grown throughout the tournament,” Doris said. “You can see the progression game on game.

“They put it up to Scotland in the most recent fixture. They started well. They've clearly invested a lot of time in their attack. It's a good attack and it's going to be a challenge for our defence. They've got different layers to it. They can play wide and deep, the forwards have great ability to play tips and plusses at the line and they're very unpredictable in terms of two-sided, lots of quick taps, playing out.

“We saw (Louis) Rees-Zammit run the ball from deep. Tomos Williams wants to keep a high tempo, snipe, quick throw-ins, quick tap, so it's going to be important for us to be always on and be ready for those.

“I'm sure in camp for them, they've been taking a lot of positives from that (Scotland) game. They've obviously had a two-week run-up like us into this.

“I'm sure they've built quite a bit of belief through how they've trained, through some of the pictures they've seen. It's going to be a challenge.” 

Doris is relishing the opportunity to return to Aviva Stadium under the lights on a night when number nine Jamison Gibson-Park will make his 50th Ireland appearance and back-up scrum-half Nathan Doak could make his Ireland debut.

“Friday night's a pretty special time to do it as well. I love the Friday night game here in the Aviva. We've got Nathan Doak's first cap and Jamison as well, the two nines. Pretty big milestones for both of them so there's a lot of motivation to make it a special day for them as well.”