Easterby confident ‘unbelievable’ Sheehan can lead from front in absence of Doris

In the enforced absence of Caelan Doris, who misses out on a trek to Australia for the second summer running, the Ireland coaching staff are confident that Dan Sheehan will lead from the front when captaining his side against Australia at the Allianz Stadium (kick-off Saturday, 8.10pm local time/11.10am Irish).

“It’s disappointing for Caelan, with missing out on potentially a couple of trips to Australia,” said defence coach Simon Easterby from the squad’s hotel in Sydney. “Hopefully, next year, it’ll be third time lucky ahead of the World Cup. It’s frustrating for him.

“But Dan is an unbelievable player who has a skill set that’s probably different to a lot of players in his position. He leads by his actions and he leads from the front and he’s shown that over a number of years.

“He captained Ireland in the Six Nations a couple of years ago and led unbelievably well,” added Easterby in reference to Sheehan leading Ireland to a win over Wales in last year’s Six Nations, while he has also led Leinster as well as the Lions on last year’s tour.

“When Caelan is captain, he (Sheehan) supports him and he’s got plenty of guys around him as well who are supporting him. It’s not too much of a change.

“Obviously, Caelan, as a person and a player, any side would miss that quality, but Dan has stepped up pretty quickly and taken on that role pretty well,” Easterby added.

The Irish team will be announced early on Thursday morning, Irish time, and all 36 players trained again on Wednesday in a week in which they had “hit the ground running”, according to Easterby.

“It’s been a great week of reconnecting and we’ve had great facilities in West Tigers ground and it’s been an excellent seven days.”

Mindful of the Wallabies’ desire to make a statement 15 months out from hosting the 2027 World Cup, Andy Farrell’s side are anticipating an altogether different challenge from the Wallabies than when beating them last November in Dublin.

That 46-19 win over Australia was the Wallabies’ penultimate Test in a hectic 15-match schedule last year, and as well as being their first game of 2026, Saturday’s fixture is also their first Test on home soil since hosting the All Blacks in Perth 14 months ago.

Looking ahead to this Saturday’s match on the opening weekend of the Nations Championship, Easterby highlighted the Wallabies’ “ability to attack in a way that can create opportunities and those are the things that we’ve spoken about in a bit of detail today”.

He added: “We are expecting a side who have probably got a chance to go and lay down a bit of a marker leading into a World Cup year, playing at home for the first time in a while so it’s exciting for us to be here in the first game.”

The 42,500 capacity at Sydney’s Football Stadium was sold out quickly and, a la the successful tour here in 2018, the Irish camp anticipates another large, expat-infused green army to support them.

“We expect to see a lot of green in the stadium and it’ll be hopefully a good night for us. But, yeah, certainly in terms of an experience having been here last summer, the amount of Irish that were out with the Lions was phenomenal and I’m sure a lot of those will turn up again on the weekend.”

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