'I made the most of it' - Doris returns to Ireland captaincy refreshed

CAELAN DORIS WAS on track to be a key player for the Lions last summer. He almost certainly would have been captain too.

Then he was struck down by a shoulder injury as Leinster lost their Champions Cup semi-final to Northampton in May.

Doris didn’t know straight away that his Lions dream was over. It was only the next morning that he learned the reality of the situation.

“I haven’t had shoulder injuries in the last number of years anyway, since school really, so it was an unfamiliar feeling,” said Doris today, ahead of captaining Ireland against Japan tomorrow.

“I know there’s been cases of lads getting dead shoulders where a nerve can switch off and that can be a short-term thing. So I was hopeful it was something like that, but I got a scan the following morning, the Sunday after the semi-final, and obviously found out that it was quite a bit worse than I hoped and thought.”

He could have been forgiven for wallowing in the unfairness of it, but Doris bounced back quickly.

“Gutted initially obviously, but I really felt it allowed the emotion to come through and process it, then I was able to see the positives in the situation and move on quite quickly and frame it in a positive way and as a kind of halfway point in my career and reset and do things that I wouldn’t have been able to do had I been playing rugby that summer,” he said.

“So I definitely made the most of it from a rugby and physical point of view and trying to come back better, fitter, stronger.

“Get on top of some other areas of weakness in my body, but also do some things mentally and, yeah, refreshing things as well and trips away and whatnot. So I made the most of it.”

He was in the US for all three of the Lions Tests and missed the second and third games live because he was on a retreat that involved a digital detox.

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There was a bit of pain in watching games he could have been playing in, but some of his best friends were involved and he’s a big rugby fan anyway.

Doris loved his digital detox, getting used to being without his phone by the second day and he was reluctant to turn it back on at the end of the week.

He used his time away from playing wisely, building himself up physically, rehabbing his shoulder, and fixing up other issues like his hips, which had bothering him for quite a while.

But Doris also switched off from rugby completely, which can be a difficult thing to do.

“I suppose kind of separating who I am from what I do was a bit of an overarching goal for the period and kind of building more self-awareness and exploration around that kind of thing,” he said.

“It’s definitely hard to do when you’re playing because it is all encompassing, but that’s why I saw this as an opportunity to step away for the first few months in particular and, yeah, I found it pretty beneficial.”

Not that Doris wasn’t excited to finally get back to playing rugby. He made his long-awaited comeback off the Irish bench against New Zealand last weekend, making a thunderous carry with his first touch.

And now he returns to the starting XV and resumes his captaincy against Japan tomorrow, as Ireland look to take a step forward after last weekend’s defeat to the All Blacks.

“Obviously, New Zealand in Chicago, it’s a fixture that you look out for from months prior to it,” said Doris.

“So the high of being in a new place, the uniqueness of that, the low of defeat, travelling back, so trying to get everyone on the same page and excited about our first home game here, and about what we can do.

“Learn the lessons early in the week, dive into what went wrong and what we can do better, and then turn the page quickly and get excited about being here tomorrow for a nice early kick-off.”