Stand-in captain Kyle McCallan is well aware Ireland will have to work extremely hard over the next few weeks to avoid being totally blown away in the Super Eight stage of the World Cup.
Ireland suffered an eight-wicket defeat to West Indies in their final Group D game at Sabina Park on Friday after Brian Lara's side reached a rain-adjusted target of 190 with 59 balls to spare.
Both the Windies and Ireland had already qualified for the Super Eight stage after McCallan's charges secured their progress following the shock victory over Pakistan last week.
'We have the onus on us now to go into the Super Eights and not be the whipping boys,' said McCallan, who led the side after Trent Johnston was ruled out through injury.
'I wouldn't say it's the fear, but it would be the one thing that motivates us to go and compete.
'The adventure goes on. It is an adventure for us. This is totally unchartered waters. By the end of this tournament, we will have played nine or 10 games against top international Test class opposition and that can only be good for Irish cricket in the long run.'
McCallan said his side had not batted well enough against West Indies, and they'll need to do much better in the Super Eight stage of the competition.
'We had a plan to bat first, get enough runs to put the West Indies under pressure, and then squeeze them with stump-to-stump bowling by our medium-pacers and field like we did against Pakistan,' he added.
'Unfortunately 190 wasn't enough to do that. We lost our way in the middle of our innings and 190 meant that we needed to get wickets early on and when we got Chris Gayle we thought maybe, but you're not playing club cricket any more.
'Gayle is out and then (Ramnaresh) Sarwan comes in and then you've got Marlon Samuels and then Brian Lara so we were up against it, and I think it was the lack of runs that caused the problem.'
McCallan also defended his side's surprising decision to bat first against the World Cup hosts in Kingston.
'I wouldn't have changed what I did because I think it would have been the thing to do, you know, bowl first, get your 50 overs in the field and then see how many runs you can get,' he said.
'We have plans to win matches. I don't think there was any excessive movement with the new ball early on. I just thought we allowed them to pressure us and squeeze us in the middle of the innings.'
Ireland will face either England or Kenya in their opening Super Eight match next Friday at the Providence Stadium in Guyana.
