Ireland captain Caelan Doris says he will get the foot injury which forced him to leave the field early in Leinster’s emphatic 36-7 United Rugby Championship final win over the Pretoria Bulls “checked out”.
The back row retired hurt just seven minutes into the Croke Park encounter, having recovered sufficiently from a knee injury sustained in the team’s semi-final victory over the Stormers to take his place in the starting line-up for the decider.
The sight of Doris coming off injured will have caused concern for Ireland coach Andy Farrell with his side’s Nations Championship opener against Australia in Sydney just two weeks away.
Ireland also face Japan on 11 July and New Zealand one week later.
Doris was replaced by Ireland team-mate Jack Conan, who went on to score one of his side’s five tries as they became the first side to claim back-to-back league titles, both signed off with successes over the Bulls.
“I was optimistic about my knee and my knee was fine, it was actually something else, so we’ll get it checked later,” Doris told Premier Sports after the game.
Asked later in the post-match press conference if the foot problem could affect his leaving for Australia with the rest of the Ireland squad, Doris said: “We’ll see how it unfolds over the next 24 hours.”
The number eight commended his squad for “turning the page” on their European Champions Cup final defeat by Bordeaux-Begles last month by beating their South African opponents in Dublin on Friday.
“To see us front up physically, it goes a long way to beating the Bulls,” he said.
“From a big disappointment a few weeks ago, very proud of the whole organisation in how we’ve been able to turn the page and have such a very special day here.
“We had an unbelievable start to the game and you could see the guys were on it physically and that went a long way towards the victory.”
