WITH LEINSTER UNDER the pump at Stade Marcel Deflandre, their captain led the resistance by destructive, belligerent example.

Caelan Doris is a key defensive weapon for province and country, as underlined once again by his impact against La Rochelle.

The 26-year-old’s first turnover of the game came in the sixth minute as he stripped opposite number Grégory Alldritt of possession.

Doris starts close to the ruck wide on Leinster’s left.

La Rochelle are keen to see if they can get the ball outside Leinster’s aggressive defensive line early in the game.

Leinster are keen to pressure La Rochelle’s passing as they attempt to go wide.

So as La Rochelle pass deep to try and give themselves time to get outside Leinster’s defence, the defenders towards the edge of the defensive line are blitzing forward at speed.

Back row Ryan Baird and centre Garry Ringrose apply the pressure on La Rochelle centre Ulupano Seuteni.

Right wing Jimmy O’Brien isn’t worried about the extra attackers out to his right. He races forward at top speed in a bid to shut La Rochelle fullback Brice Dulin down before he can pass.

As we see below, Seuteni gets the ball away before Baird hits him, while Dulin does the same before O’Brien makes contact.

But the pressure means Dulin’s pass is a poor one, travelling slowly and dropping low on Alldritt’s inside.

Alldritt has to pause and stoop to take the ball, giving Ringrose time to catch up from the inside, as Jacques Nienaber’s defensive system relies on.

A number of other Leinster players are working hard across the pitch as catch-up defenders and so, Alldritt is dissuaded from trying to pass to wing Dillyn Leyds on his left.

Instead, he ducks back inside – something Leinster want. That’s because the likes of Doris can make their presence felt, as he does here.

As Alldritt straightens up, Doris makes contact and instantly targets the ball, fighting to strip it away for a turnover.

It obviously takes physical power to ‘reef’ the ball away from a carrier such as Alldritt but it also requires technical accuracy and timing, the most forceful moment of ripping the ball clear ideally coming as the carrier attempts to adjust into a stronger position.

And as we see below, Doris completes his turnover by cleverly nudging the loose ball up to scrum-half Jamison Gibson-Park before La Rochelle can recover it.

One of the most impressive things about Doris as a defender is the sheer volume of work he gets through.

He makes impactful tackles and invariably delivers a second action, whether jackaling for a turnover or working back to his feet to try and barge through the opposition ruck.

He is a relentless presence around the ball and his next involvement in a turnover came just two minutes after the strip on Alldritt.

With La Rochelle playing off a shortened lineout, Doris is part of the backline defence.

La Rochelle run a maul break play and Leinster’s Josh van der Flier, just inside Doris in the line, attempts to intercept hooker Quentin Lespiaucq’s pass to centre Jules Favre, only to be beaten by the pass.

Doris reads the play well to adjust infield and thumps Favre in a big tackle.

Favre does superbly to take the heavy contact from Doris and get an offload away from the ground, allowing La Rochelle’s attack to continue.

Flanker Paul Boudehent makes an explosive break through Robbie Henshaw and Ringrose, suddenly bringing danger for Leinster.

But van der Flier works hard to scrag Boudehent from behind.

And as is becoming increasingly typical, Leinster manage to recover strongly from a situation that looks threatening.

Van der Flier bounces back up to his feet as Doris also arrives at the breakdown, having tracked back with energy.

Both Leinster back rows do enough to show referee Nika Amashukeli that they have got their feet back onto Leinster’s side of the tackle and are therefore now attacking the breakdown through the gate.

Doris targets the exposed ball on the ground and van der Flier reacts superbly by driving up beyond Doris onto arriving La Rochelle scrum-half Tawera Kerr-Barlow as he looks to scoop the ball up.

With Kerr-Barlow fighting to keep the ball, the Leinster pair quickly wrap him up in a choke tackle that several of their team-mates join.

It becomes a maul and with Kerr-Barlow unable to get a knee to the ground to signal a completed tackle, Amashukeli awards Leinster a turnover scrum.

Doris is also well-known as a jackal threat for Leinster and Ireland, his defensive breakdown qualities allowing him to make regular turnovers.

Those skills were key to another Leinster turnover in their 22 in the 20th minute. Doris is a player who truly pushes the boundaries of the law. He’s a master of the so-called ‘dark arts’ and sometimes seems to have something of an invisibility cloak. 

Watch below how he jackals, is driven backwards away from the ball, but fights to stay up long enough to grab at the ball a second time – which is illegal. 

Doris isn’t really on his feet as he has that second dab, arguably making it doubly against the laws, but it’s only a flash of contact with the ball and it’s the kind of thing that is difficult for match officials to spot live all the time.

In this instance, it helps to slow down La Rochelle’s speed of ball in the Leinster 22. And Doris is far from finished.

He gets off the ground on the very next phase to jackal again as Leinster’s linespeed forces Boudehent to duck back under and carry close to where Doris is getting up.

Doris is suddenly a big threat for La Rochelle to worry about as he hovers over Boudehent while the France international is tackled by Rónan Kelleher.

As Doris snaps over the ball, La Rochelle lock Kane Douglas reacts by ‘croc rolling’ Doris away, an act that is now illegal due to the danger posed to jackalers.

Again, it’s difficult to catch every illegal clearout live during games and Douglas is not penalised, but Doris’ back-to-back efforts have helped to leave La Rochelle’s attack in poor shape, with half their team congested around the ball.

As such, Gibson-Park can go after opposite number Kerr-Barlow as he lifts the ball, making a good tackle and instantly bouncing up in a bid to jackal.

As we see above, La Rochelle flanker Oscar Jégou comes in from the side to clear Gibson-Park away and Leinster are awarded the penalty for a massive defensive win.

It’s still only the 22nd minute when Doris makes his second turnover in the tackle, with Leinster once again defending in their own 22.

La Rochelle steal a Leinster lineout and slick hands from Favre and Seuteni allow them to shift the ball wide to their right, getting outside Leinster’s blitz. But fullback Jordie Barrett tracks back well to begin holding Jack Nowell up, while Doris arrives across as one of the hard-working catch-up defenders.

Barrett recognises the opportunity as he wraps up Nowell’s midriff and begins lifting him off the ground, while Doris immediately goes after the ball.

Nowell is left in an exposed position and Doris strips the ball away from him before offloading inside. The siege is lifted once again.

Doris continued to test the limits of legality throughout this game, with another example below to end a La Rochelle penalty advantage in Leinster’s 22.

Doris is involved in the tackle and then looks to barge through on the counter-ruck, briefly grappling with George-Henri Colombe before he goes to ground.

With his right knee down, Doris is arguably off his feet and needs to retreat back into the Leinster defensive line.

Instead, we see below how Doris bounces up and basically re-joins the ruck from La Rochelle’s side before hooking the ball back towards Leinster.

Hooking the ball backwards in a ruck is not illegal as long as player is on their feet, but Doris’ angle of essenially re-entering the ruck is suspect.

The ball bobbles out for RG Snyman to gather just before the whistle sounds.

“No advantage, turnover,” says Amashukeli as he goes back to the original penalty advantage, content that Doris has earned a good turnover for Leinster.

It’s worth pointing out that the Leinster skipper gives away his fair share of penalties and sometimes gets pinged for his breakdown work, but his sheer volume of efforts mean he gets more rewards and big plays for his team.

He seems to have an great intuition for when to push the boundaries to his teams’ benefit. 

The number eight won a jackal turnover in the 63rd minute as Leinster defended in their half.

Doris brings good linespeed to dissuade Seuteni from passing and then looks to wrap him up in another choke tackle along with Ciarán Frawley.

But Seuteni fights to get his right knee down to ground, signalling that a tackle has technically been completed and the tacklers must release.

Just as Seuteni gets his knee down, Frawley is being driven away by Lespiaucq [red circle below] and Dulin is attempting to drive onto Doris [black below] and remove him from the tackle situation.

But typically, Doris manages to hold his feet here as Dulin slips past him.

So even though Amashukeli roars, “Release now, tackle!” to let Doris know he has to release Seuteni, the Leinster skipper is still on his feet and closer to the ball than anyone.

Doris shows an exaggerated clear release, spreading his arms out wide to give Amashukeli what he wants to see.

Then Doris snaps down onto the ball, beating Kerr-Barlow to it.

Again, Doris has worked his feet in behind Seuteni on Leinster’s side to show Amashukeli this legal picture of him on the ball looking to lift it clear for the turnover.

We can see above that Dulin is momentarily making contact with Doris but he obviously hasn’t come through the gate for a clearout and swiftly decides not to try and remove Doris.

What happens next is interesting as Doris falls forward onto the ground from that initial legal position.

Jack Conan, just behind Doris, anticipates that his captain will barge here and drives into Doris from behind to add more power to that effort. At the same time, Doris appears to expect Kerr-Barlow to drive into him and slightly leans his body weight forward towards the La Rochelle scrum-half to counter that.

The combined effect is that Doris falls off his feet but while La Rochelle appeal for a penalty, Amashukeli is happy with the poach, saying, “He released and took the ball” after Doris pops off the ground to Conan.

It’s one that might go against Doris on another occasion but this was his day.

As well as being a relentless force with his turnover contributions, Doris never stopped tackling in La Rochelle. He was the leading tackler with 27, including three in the gripping final passage with the clock in the red.

Doris had a tackle involving head contact flagged by TMO Matthew Carley in the closing minutes of the game.

However, referee Amashukeli felt it wasn’t foul play.

“Eight is clearly bent at the hips, so tackle is legal,” said Amashukeli upon reviewing the incident. “We can’t ask him to go lower, so no foul play for me. Just accidental, eight is making a legal attempt.”

As well as his mountain of defensive work, Doris was busy in attack as he finished up joint-top of their ball-carrying chart with Barrett on 14 carries.

In the instance above, Doris picks up a tip-in pass from Kelleher and powers into the tackle of Jégou to take Leinster well over the gainline.

Being able to carry directly into traffic is part of Doris’ job at times and he performs that duty with no hesitation.

We get an example below as Leinster use Doris to charge at the seam behind a shortened lineout as they set up to kick.

But there is subtlety to Doris’ game in attack too.

He is comfortable at passing the ball and often looks to use footwork close to the defensive line to change the picture at a late stage.

We see as much in the instance below as Doris puts Baird away for a linebreak.

Doris is at the centre of a pod of three forwards as Leinster play off scrum-half Gibson-Park from a ruck on the left.

Doris [red below] can carry himself, tip a pass inside to Andrew Porter [blue], tip a pass outside to Baird [yellow], or sweep a pass out the back to out-half Sam Prendergast [pink].

Doris understands that Lespiaucq is closing up to tackle him [red below] but the sudden burst of footwork Doris uses to step to his right also attracts Jégou [yellow below], who turns in as he worries about Doris’ ball-carrying power.

Uini Atonio, the next defender outside, has presumed that Jégou will stay out and deal with Baird. That means Atonio [blue below] is worrying about Prendergast out the back.

And as such, Atonio can’t adjust in quickly enough when Doris’ clever work lures Jégou into biting in on him.

Doris tips the ball on to Baird just before he is double-tackled and the Leinster blindside flanker can accelerate into space.

The angle below highlights the quality of Doris’ work.

Doris’ late change of direction encourages Baird to adjust out into the space after initially running a shorter line off his captain.

The big linebreak could have led to more for Leinster only for Gibson-Park’s ensuing cross-kick to fly into touch on the full, but they’ll be hoping to see lots more of this kind of interplay within their attack shape as the season progresses.

Doris will be key, as he is to nearly all aspects of Leinster’s play.

He is still in the relatively early stages of his captaincy for province and country but his leadership skills appear to be improving and he is certainly becoming more confident in his dealings with referees.

Doris is always in the thick of everything and was only too happy to have a penalty awarded in his favour when Colombe needlessly ripped his scrum cap off during one tussle early in the second half.

It was a day when most things went right for the Leinster number eight.