skip to main content

Caerlan Doris: 'We showed what we are capable of at times'

Ireland captain Caelan Doris
Ireland captain Caelan Doris

Ireland captain Caelan Doris believes his side have shown what they are made of, with their bonus-point start to the Guinness Six Nations.

Three second half tries saw them overturn a 10-5 half time defecit against England at Aviva Stadium, to eventually run out comfortable winners, in spite of some late English scores.

"Yeah, it's definitely satisfying," the Ireland captain said of the performance.

Ireland were handed a tricky start to the competition with a home game against England followed by an away trip to Scotland next Sunday.

But the Ireland skipper believes they have given themselves a lot to build on when they travel to Edinburgh.

"Momentum is obviously huge in this competition. You can’t win it in the first round but you can lose it essentially, or dampen your chances quite a bit, so that middle 30 of the second half, very pleased."

Crucially, Ireland’s attack looked far more fluid compared to their clunky November campaign.

While there were still some residual handling errors, they created far more opportunities from deep than they had in their Autumn Nations Series wins, while their second half attacking performance was clean and accurate.

The Leinster number eight was delighted with the response of his side in the second half, after they had let England move into a 10-5 advantage.

"We need to get back to doing things our way. There was a bit of a feeling towards the end of the first half that we were going to break them a little bit.

"When we were getting into their 22 and score zone, things were going to happen for us if we got a little quicker ball and continued to do things our way, so that was the message [at half time].

"I think we showed what we are capable of at times, definitely. It was a good 10-day build-up to this and there's strong belief in the attack plan that we have, in some of the plays that Goody [Andrew Goodman] has come up with and in our general phase attack as well.

"I think we showed it at times but as we get deeper into the tournament, it’s going to need to be a stronger point and we’re going to continue to need to develop it," he added.

Meanwhile, England head coach Steve Borthwick was hugely impressed with the performance of Ireland's Jack Crowley.

The Munster 10 made had an impactful 22 minutes on the pitch as he steered Ireland home to victory, with Ireland 13-10 ahead when he replaced Sam Prendergast before the hour.

"The change at '10' was pretty significant," the England coach said.

"I thought he played really well when he came on there in that final part of the game.

"They have got quality in their team. I was looking at the teams beforehand and on their bench I think they had almost as many caps as we had in our whole 23.

"I was looking at it going, this is going to be a test for us and ultimately we came up short, and I am really disappointed we came up short because I thought we could come here and win the game."

Read Next