{"id":530775,"date":"2026-07-03T08:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T08:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/530775\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T08:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T08:25:09","slug":"sheehan-confident-ireland-can-kick-on-from-six-nations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/530775\/","title":{"rendered":"Sheehan confident Ireland can kick on from Six Nations"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s a bittersweet element to captaining Ireland this month for Dan Sheehan.<\/p>\n

The Leinster hooker will lead Ireland out for the third time tomorrow, as Andy Farrell\u2019s side begin their Nations Championship campaign against Australia in Sydney.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the ultimate honour for any Ireland international, and something Sheehan has done twice before, covering for Caelan Doris for the first time in March 2025 against Wales when the number 8 missed out with a minor knee injury, and doing so again against the All Blacks in Chicago when Doris was on the bench.<\/p>\n

Injury again rules Doris out for this tour, with the back row suffering a foot injury early in the URC final against the Bulls, before Sheehan got the nod from Farrell the following afternoon.<\/p>\n

“I remember getting the call on the day two of the celebrations of the URC and it didn\u2019t faze me at all. I was more disappointed for Caelan at the time,” the hooker said.<\/p>\n

“I knew it wasn’t great, his injury, so I kind of had it in the back of my head slightly that I need to be ready to go.”<\/p>\n

As for the moment itself?<\/p>\n

“It was just a quick call, like 30 seconds. ‘Will you do it?\u2019 And I was like, \u2018Yeah, sure, I’ll see you in Sydney\u2019 because he [Farrell] was on the flight ahead.”<\/p>\n

While Sheehan has done the job before, this time it will be different.<\/p>\n

In each of his two previous days covering for Doris, the regular skipper was still very much part of the camp and present with the team. For the All Blacks game, Doris was even in the matchday squad.<\/p>\n

This will be a longer stint as captain, with three Tests across Australia and New Zealand, away from home for four weeks.<\/p>\n

\"3<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s something I\u2019ve actually quite enjoyed. It hasn\u2019t been too daunting,” Sheehan (above) added.<\/p>\n

“We have a great group of leaders in the squad already, so it\u2019s just a good chance for me to develop my own personal skills but also get a grip of the squad in a full month on tour, which has been nice.<\/p>\n

“I think the prep has been good. I’ve enjoyed the build up to it. I think everyone’s raring to go.<\/p>\n

“It’s been perfectly fine, it’s probably trying to get away from thinking about it [the captaincy] all the time; how’s the group feeling? Do you need to address anything, all this stuff.<\/p>\n

“But this group is very well disciplined and take it extremely seriously every time they get a chance to put on this jersey.”<\/p>\n

While Ireland come into this opening block of the Nations Championship off the back of a brilliant end to the Six Nations, they haven\u2019t forgotten their dreadful start to the campaign away to France in Paris.<\/p>\n

Coupled with the sluggish performance against the All Blacks in Chicago last November, and a pattern of slow starts to Test windows has emerged.<\/p>\n

Correcting that has been a key principle in their preparation since arriving in Sydney last week.<\/p>\n

\"3
\nThe Ireland squad held their captain’s run at Allianz Stadium on Friday<\/p>\n

“It’s probably been a theme in a few campaigns now where we’ve had a slow start and built nicely through it.<\/p>\n

“So, my big focus has been on making sure we continue that form from the end of the Six Nations. I think we’ve got the tone of the week right.<\/p>\n

“Obviously we have to wait and see tomorrow, but I’m fizzing to go and my head feels pretty clear and free, which is the way you want to be as a player.<\/p>\n

“I think we wanted to hit the ground running [in Sydney]. We’re a very diligent group that preps very well.<\/p>\n

“Trying to think back to the Six Nations, we hit the ground running in Portugal, we thought we had a great week’s prep and we obviously didn’t give the best version of ourselves on the day in that first game in France.<\/p>\n

“That’s been my focus on the last couple of weeks, just making sure that the lads are switched on and not overawed by detail,” the hooker said.<\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s game at Allianz Stadium will also be a nice dress rehearsal for Ireland ahead of their World Cup opener against Portugal at this ground next year.<\/p>\n

\"26<\/p>\n

And with a healthy Irish contingent are expected among the sold-out 42,500 crowd, Sheehan (above) is hoping to get a taste of what\u2019s to come next year.<\/p>\n

“I think most of the squad have friends or family out here. It’s been nice catching up with them over the last few days, and you know they’re all excited.<\/p>\n

“Hard to find tickets. Everyone’s asking you and you can’t get them it really feels like a proper World Cup away day feel to it, and hopefully it is with the late kick-off.<\/p>\n

“Hopefully everyone’s having a great day and shows up in green and sometimes the traveling support can be even better than at home.<\/p>\n

“We’ve been talking about it all week, making sure we put on a show for a lot of Irish fans who’ve got up in the middle of the night to watch us a lot of times and it’s brilliant to be down here now and be able to put on a show for them, hopefully.”<\/p>\n

Listen to the RT\u00c9 Rugby podcast on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts<\/a>, and email us at sportpodcasts@rte.ie <\/p>\n

\n

Follow a live blog of Australia v Ireland on Saturday from 11.10am on RT\u00c9.ie\/sport and the RT\u00c9 News app.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There’s a bittersweet element to captaining Ireland this month for Dan Sheehan. The Leinster hooker will lead Ireland…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-530775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}