CAELAN DORIS CAN add playing at outside centre in a Test match to his list of achievements.
The Ireland skipper shifted out of the pack into midfield for the closing seven minutes of yesterday’s eight-try win over Fiji following a couple of injuries in the Irish backline during a bruising encounter in Dublin.
He’ll definitely be staying in the back row but the 26-year-old was happy to make a temporary switch against the Fijians.
“I enjoyed it out there,” said Doris before Ireland head coach Andy Farrell, sitting alongside him, offered his review.
“Disappointed that he didn’t get over the line actually,” said Farrell.
“There was a bit of wherever the ball’s going, I’ll go to the other side,” said Doris with a smile. “But it was enjoyable.”
It was a jovial post-match press conference for Ireland after the 52-17 win over a Fiji outfit who had enjoyed a strong past year.
Their lack of discipline in the first half was costly but Fiji also struggled to consistently dent the strong Irish defence and while they landed some big tackles on Irish players, they were also picked apart by the Ireland attack on many occasions.
After defeat to New Zealand and a win over Argentina that featured plenty of errors in the second half, Doris was much happier with this Irish performance.
“I think it’s our best of the three,” said Doris. “It felt pretty dominant out there.
“Good start to the game, similar to last week and the message at half time was to have a ruthless start to the second half and to kick on.
“Our attack hasn’t quite fired in the second half over the last couple of weeks but it was good today, we got a few tries off the back of it.
“It’s pretty pleasing, there was a bit of an onus on some of the older, more experienced guys to take a bit of a load off the younger guys and I think there’s a pretty even spread across the week, even the guys who weren’t playing stood up and allowed the young guys to do what they do best.”
Doris scored Ireland’s opening try as he took a smart Gus McCarthy inside pass on one of backs coach Andrew Goodman’s lineout strike play in the Fijian 22.
And Doris turned provider as he gave the scoring pass to Josh van der Flier for Ireland’s second try from a five-metre tap play designed by forwards coach Paul O’Connell.
While Ireland did miss some obvious chances, there was a pleasing level of cohesion to their performance despite the seven changes Farrell made to the starting XV and the in-game rejigs that saw Conor Murray playing on the wing and Doris moving to midfield.
“I think the way the environment is, it’s seen as an exciting challenge as opposed to a burden or something to fear,” said Doris.
“You look back at Scotland in 2023 when so many people were out of position at half time quite early in the game.
“There’s an excitement about it and wanting to figure it out together on the pitch as opposed to being, ‘Oh shit, what are we going to do now?’ So it was pleasing.”
And Doris was delighted for young players like Gus McCarthy, Sam Prendergast, and Cormac Izuchukwu, who impressed after being given starting chances against Fiji.
“Not just for me, from the whole group the message is to be yourself, enjoy it, soak it in, special days, special memories and the lads got opportunities based off how they train, based off how they’ve gone with their provinces. I think they all went really well today.”
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