Il Nuovo Postiglione - Ireland captain Doris doubtful for Lions tour due to shoulder injury

The 27-year-old has been touted as a potential British and Irish Lions captain for this summer's tour of Australia.

Lions head coach Andy Farrell is due to name his squad for the series on Thursday.

Ireland skipper Doris was hurt during his province's 37-34 European Champions Cup semi-final defeat by Northampton on Saturday.

He has been ruled out of next weekend's United Rugby Championship clash at home to Zebre.

"Caelan Doris will have a procedure this week on a shoulder injury and a further assessment will be carried out afterwards," a Leinster statement said.

Leinster senior coach Jacques Nienaber told reporters he feared Doris' injury was serious.

"He saw a specialist and I think there's some further investigation that needs to be done," Nienaber said.

"Fingers crossed that things aren't as bad as we think it is, but in the last couple of months that I've worked with Caelan, he's not a guy that necessarily comes off the pitch with injury.

"So when I subjectively saw him coming off the pitch on Saturday, I thought in my mind, 'that must be quite serious'.

"We'll probably know more in the back end of the week, but my gut - and it's only gut - says that I think it might be serious, but fingers crossed it might not be."

Farrell's Lions begin their three-match Test series against the Wallabies on July 19 in Brisbane before playing in Melbourne a week later and finishing in Sydney on August 2.

E.Spicuzza--INP