Doris, Kelleher, And Furlong Ruled Out Of Wales Match
2025 Guinness Six Nations Championship Round 2, Scottish Gas Murrayfield, Edinburgh, Scotland 9/2/2025 Scotland vs Ireland Ireland's Caelan Doris and Scotland's Jamie Dobie Mandatory Credit ©INPHO/Dan Sheridan
Ireland captain Caelan Doris and hooker Ronán Kelleher have been ruled out of the match against Wales on Saturday while Tadhg Furlong is continuing to make progress but will not be available for selection.
Doris picked up a knee injury the Round 2 clash with Scotland while Kelleher is being managed for a neck issue.
“We’re hoping they’ll be available for France. They’re just going through their processes that they do with the physios, but they’re all making good progress,” said attack coach Andrew Goodman.
Asked about who might replace Doris as captain Goodman said, “There are some good leaders in the squad. We are going through that process.
“Obviously the leadership group has been growing well over the last couple of years and there’s a number of guys who have captained their provinces. So we have got some good options to choose from.
“Guys like Pete O’Mahony and Jack Conan that have captained their provinces. Dan Sheehan has, Ringer, JR (James Ryan), Cian Prendergast – there are a number of guys with leadership experience, so a few possibilities there,”
Looking ahead to the Wales match he added, “To be honest, no chance [of complacency] in this group. The way the preparation has been from the playing group is as good as any other week, and when you look at the history of Ireland-Wales over the last 10 years over there, it hasn’t been a nice place for us to go on a number of occasions.
“So we know they’re back at home and there will be a bit of a natural bounce with a new coach coming in and so I don’t think there’s any chance of any complacency from this group going over there.
“We have a competitive squad and we’re happy that we’ve got 35, 36 bodies in here at the moment who we’d be happy to chuck out in any game, so the boys are competing hard in training and there’s going to be some opportunities in training for boys to put their hand up who haven’t featured so far, so it’s always a good energy around the group when there’s someone coming in to play a game,” he added.