New Zealand's Beauden Barrett says his side are eager to gain revenge after the pain of their home series loss to Ireland in the summer of 2022.
The All Blacks formally booked their spot in the knockout phase with a 73-0 pasting of Uruguay in Lyon on Thursday evening.
Since losing their first ever World Cup pool game to France on the opening night, they have made unsurprisingly light work of the Pool A lower orders, racking up a total of 240 points and conceding 20.
With France still to face Italy, it is assumed they'll qualify as runners-up, where Ireland could lie in wait in the quarter-finals.
If that came to pass, it would be the sides' first meeting since the third test in Wellington, when Ireland won 32-22 to claim a historic 2-1 series victory.
While Barrett was to the fore as New Zealand trounced a sorry Irish side in the quarter-finals of the 2019 World Cup, Ireland have otherwise won five of the last eight test matches between the sides.
For the two-time World Player of the Year, the memory of the tour loss provides ample motivation.
"We learnt a lot during that series, it was a challenging time, some of the most challenging times we've faced as an All Black team, and personally, losing the series in our back yard," said Barrett.
"What we know is the beast that Ireland are and if you allow them to dictate up front and play the way they want to, they’re a tough team to stop.
"So, if it’s Ireland in the quarter-finals, it’s going to be great because there are a lot of us who are pretty keen to get one up on them and still we’re hurting from what happened last year."
Head coach Ian Foster said his side had learned from the Ireland loss, specifying only the lineout drives that resulted in Ireland tries and the need to improve their defence in that area.
"I don't think we got surprised in that series but we realised there were a couple of areas that our benchmark wasn’t high enough.
"You cant give top teams a couple of line-out drive tries against you per game and expect to come out and beat them consistently.
"So, we had to work hard on a couple of areas — that obviously being one — and I think we did and I think we know we’re (still) going to get massively tested in those areas.
"It was an uppercut we got and, to be fair, we’ve had those uppercuts before and sometimes you get an uppercut but you just have to come out on the winning side of it."
