The ‘one specific chat’ with Andy Farrell that Caelan Doris has never forgotten and his ‘right direction’ verdict on Ireland ahead of the Six Nations
Ireland captain Caelan Doris at a media briefing last November and, inset, head coach Andy Farrell
Ireland skipper Caelan Doris has recalled how an early Test career chat with Andy Farrell left an indelible impression on him.
Now 27, Doris has come a long way since debuting in the Irish back row in 2020, which was Farrell’s first year at the helm since his promotion from assistant coach to succeed Joe Schmidt.
It was 2024, the year Doris was nominated for the World Player of the Year award, that he took over the captaincy from Peter O’Mahony. The consensus was that he would have skippered the British and Irish Lions on their 2025 tour to Australia if he hadn’t suffered a serious shoulder injury when playing for Leinster last May.
Doris returned to the international fold with Ireland in November and while the Autumn Nations Series resulted in just two wins from four matches, the back-rower believes the team is still heading in the right direction despite the indiscipline issues it encountered, most notably in the Dublin loss to South Africa.
Ahead of fronting the media on Monday in Edinburgh at the official Six Nations launch before travelling with the Ireland squad the following day to Portugal for warm weather training for the tournament opener away to France in Paris on February 5, Doris was interviewed on The Offload, the podcast hosted by retired Irish internationals Tommy Bowe and Donncha O’Callaghan.
‘You need to be up here…’
He suggested to the pair that the best rugby of his career is yet to come, explaining how a chat with Farrell some years ago, when he was earning his Test rugby stripes, still resonates with him to this day.
“Reflecting back to when I first came in and thinking the level of professionalism I was at back then with what was required, I remember one specific chat with Andy,” said Doris.
“It was around him being just, ‘I know you think you are operating at this level, but you need to be up here’. There is so much more in you from a kind of holistic point of view in terms of what I am doing off pitch, all the kind of high-performance habits, my video, recovery stuff and just setting a target for me that I didn’t even know was needed or required.
“It’s kind of taking that mindset a little bit and seeing how I saw things when I was a younger guy’s age. It’s helpful having that view while also trying to focus on my own game and doing things that I know prepare me well to play.
“It’s so true, you don’t know what you don’t know. You have things figured out to a certain extent, but there is so much more, there is so many more iterations and evolutions, and even now at this stage, I still hopefully have a number of years left in my career.
“I know from both a playing point of view and a leadership point of view, I want to continue to develop, and I know there is so much more growth and room for improvement on both levels. I am constantly chasing that down; it’s something that excites me. The environment that has been created by the coaches is one that encourages that.”
Mention of that environment, Farrell’s Ireland have been roundly criticised for essentially not kicking on from the drawn Test series away to South Africa in July 2024. Star player retirements, a rise in the level of on-pitch indiscipline, and Farrell’s Lions sabbatical have all been reasons suggested for the Irish becoming somewhat sluggish.
Doris, though, insisted the outlook was bright heading into the 2026 Six Nations and stressed that issues such as the number of penalties conceded will be addressed at training. “There is no shortage of belief in the coaches, in the plans, in the quality of player,” he reckoned.
“It’s just about getting out there with a number of changes in relatively big positions over the last couple of years and some big players gone as well. So the wheels are turning, and things are moving. Yeah, I believe things are going in the right direction, definitely.
“Yeah, definitely, it [discipline] is an area of growth,” added the skipper. “Traditionally for Irish teams, our smarts and intelligence and positive habits around discipline have been a strength and particularly under Andy and Paulie (O’Connell), it’s something that has been talked about quite a lot.
“The level of discipline in November and going back probably the last 18 months or so hasn’t been good enough and it’s something that I am conscious of, and I was talking to the coaches about, I need to lead better as captain.
“I mean, I’m giving away too many avoidable penalties. When you are playing on the edge and when there is a bit of grey in rugby anyway and it is a contact sport, you are bound to have a number of penalties. But avoiding the avoidables and building smart habits in training that will transfer over to game day is definitely a big focus for us.”
Doris also spoke about his own particular style at the breakdown. “As cliched as it is, you just want to control what you control to a certain extent. I have kind of spoken about and enjoyed the part of my game about creating a bit of chaos at the breakdown.
“Even if I can disrupt for a couple of seconds or bring an extra man in, slow the nine down and slow the ball down for a couple of seconds, I see that as a positive. But equally if I am too far on the edge and giving away a penalty, it undoes so much of that work.
“The way the coaches do it and the way I see it, it’s building the right habits in training, testing yourself, just making smart decisions around the breakdown in training and hopefully it becomes instinctive. You’re seeing the right pictures without realising it, contesting the right ones, staying out of the right ones.
“Even our game (for Leinster) last weekend against Bayonne, there was a lot (of penalties) with the way the game has gone with so much kicking and aerial contest.
“There is a number of penalties we gave away there and some of those are challenging ones to avoid as well when you want to contest in the air when there is such a high number of kicks in the game. But yeah, shining a light on it and the way we train ultimately will help us there.”