Ireland’s opening encounter against England offers up a chance to avenge last year’s defeat by Steve Borthwick’s side at Twickenham, which denied the Irish a second consecutive Grand Slam.
“We’ve got England at home first which sharpens the mind definitely so it’s hard to look too far beyond them,” explained the Leinster back-rower.
“Momentum is so big in this competition that if you don’t get the first game right you’re kind of trying to play catch-up. So it’s all about England and preparing as best as possible for that game.
“There’s a lot of belief within the group but there’s also the feeling that we can improve a tonne still.”
Doris is eager to atone for the disappointment of the agonising 23-22 reverse suffered against England last March.
“I don’t think we were quite there defensively. They’ve got very dangerous ball carriers, but the number of missed tackles for us, for me personally, wasn’t where we are capable of being definitely,” Doris said.
“Our attack, it felt like in the first half we didn’t fire a whole lot of shots, then we started the second half well, ended up leading.
“Even though some of England’s results hadn’t gone too well prior to that game we were aware that they were a quality team. You rewind only six months from that game and they were in a semi-final of the World Cup.”
