Antoine Dupont’s slagging of Caelan Doris will make sides fear him even more

"Dupont was slagging me earlier."

Caelan Doris met up with his fellow Six Nations captains - Maro Itoje, Antoine Dupont, Jac Morgan, Rory Darge, and Michele Lamaro - at the tournament launch in Rome.

The Colosseum was the setting for the photo shoot, and Ireland's leader reiterated what most fans were saying online about the unique setting.

Doris gushed: “That was cool earlier on. A nice start to the day. Beautiful city, I’m loving it."

The Leinster number eight is being tipped to captain the Lions in the summer, with his form and with Ireland head coach Andy Farrell leading the team making him favourite.

One of his rivals for the role will be Itoje, who epitomises the type of player who you hate playing against but would love to have on your side.

When asked about the Englishman, Doris said: “A bit of a nuisance, isn’t he? I always enjoy battles with him; similar tendencies in how we try to disrupt breakdowns and make a bit of chaos for the opposition there.

"He’s quality though, isn’t he? He’s shown his class over a pretty prolonged period now at this stage. He runs a lineout pretty well, he’s very good in set-piece, mauls, scrum, strong carrier, good footballing abilities.

“But probably the main thing that sticks out to me is the kind of chaos he creates at the breakdown.”

One of the new changes to the laws of the game has made it a lot more favourable for number eights to pick from the base of the scrum, while another change has afforded scrum-halves more time at rucks.

And if sides weren't already terrified enough of France's mercurial Antoine Dupont, Doris revealed that the scrum-half is 'delighted' about the amendments.

He added: “I think we’re even seeing in the last couple of weeks a bit more picking from the base, which I enjoy doing a lot.

"The backs don’t always like it. Selfishly, they want to have a crack with the ball but I think we’ll probably see a bit more of that coming in across teams definitely.

"Dupont was slagging me earlier on saying that the other rule won’t favour me. He’s delighted about it!”