Hugo Keenan says that Ireland still have work to do and admits performances in their World Cup warm-up games did not reach their usual high standards.
Victory over Samoa – in addition to wins over Italy and England – stretched Andy Farrell's side’s winning Test record to 13 games but the Six Nations winners never hit the heights of their spring campaign.
While the World Cup warm-up games exist in their own category – neither fish nor fowl – Keenan says they now need to up their game before taking on Romania, Tonga, South Africa and Scotland in Pool B.
"You have to respect all the teams in the competition," said the 27-year-old Leinster full-back.
"I suppose you have to gain a bit of confidence from what we’ve built on in the past by beating the top teams around and let that build your confidence and belief going into it.
"But you can’t take anything for granted. A lot of teams will have improved in this big block they’ve had together, so we’ve got to take it up a notch ourselves."
"Every team is going to have improved and going to have added little bits and pieces to their game
"We’ve got to do the same to ours.
"I don’t think we’ve shown our best in the Test games leading up to the World Cup so far. There’s been some good bits, but then a lot of work-ons.
"We’re ready to show an improvement on what’s gone before."
First up for Ireland, ranked number one in the world, is Romania in Bordeaux on Saturday afternoon (2.30pm Irish time).
The Oaks qualified from second in the Rugby Europe table and have only managed six wins in 28 World Cup games, spanning every tournament except the last renewal in Japan.
Ireland have won all nine Tests between the teams, the most recent meeting came at the 2015 RWC when Joe Schmidt's side ran out 44-10 winners.
"I wouldn’t have known too much about them but you have to do your homework on them, you have to get up to speed pretty quickly," said the Dubliner, capped 31 times since making his debut in 2021.
"We’ve known the schedule of games for a while now so we’ve been able to prepare for this for a bit.
"They’re a big powerful pack, they back their set piece, a few physical boys in the back line as well. It’s going to be a tough challenge. They’re going to throw the kitchen sink at us."
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