Johnny Sexton says Ireland are not carrying "much baggage" from previous World Cup exits ahead of Saturday's quarter-final with New Zealand.
Andy Farrell’s side, who topped Pool B after beating South Africa and Scotland, face three-time winners the All Blacks, who finished second behind France in Pool A.
Ireland, in nine attempts, have never made it to the last four of the competition.
They have lost seven quarter-finals in that run, including the 2019 defeat to New Zealand.
The captain, who is set to retire after the tournament, believes this team, who won a series in New Zealand in 2022, are Six Nations champions and on a 17-game winning run, are a different beast.
"We’ve worked on our mental game for the last four years," the 38-year-old told reporters in Paris this afternoon.
"We’ve put ourselves in different scenarios over the last four years to prepare for this.
"But each quarter-final that we haven’t got through or when we haven’t got through our pool, you know, they’ve all been different.
"And it’s a different group again so each of those groups lost once, it wasn’t the same group losing the quarter-final year after year.
"If it was club rugby,
it would be probably a bigger hurdle but it’s a different group and I don’t think we’re carrying much baggage.
"It’s a one-off game and we’ve got to prepare for it now."
Sexton has played against the All Blacks 17 times in his career, winning six times and drawing once.
Asked what it would mean to him to knock Ian Foster’s side out of the competition, he said: "I haven’t thought once, personally, about what the game means.
"It’s all about the team and progressing in the competition. That’s all we are thinking about.
"I’ve had some great battles against New Zealand over the years, with Ireland and the Lions.
"What you learn is that every game is as tough as the last, no matter what the result and that’s what we are preparing for.
"We’re preparing for the toughest game we’ve ever faced and we’re trying to put ourselves in a frame of mind that we are going to be ready for it.
"Trying to win a World Cup, it’s something to go and get, it’s not something that puts pressure on me.
"It’s something that you dream of, probably not as a kid. When we were kids, we didn’t dream of Ireland winning a world Cup but we’ve out ourselves in a position now to go and do that."
Earlier, Farrell named an unchanged XV for the Stade de France showdown, with Mack Hansen and James Lowe deemed fit after picking up injuries in the 36-14 win over Scotland.
Lock James Ryan was ruled out with a wrist injury, with his place on the bench being taken by Leinster team-mate Joe McCarthy, who will win his fifth cap.
Farrell, whose side are ranked number one in the world, said: "It’s the big boy stuff, isn’t it.
"It’s the business end of the competition and when you get to those points within a competition then you draw hopefully on the good experiences you’ve had. The experiences that we’ve put ourselves under in the last three or four years are for moments like this.
"We’ve got a very experienced group that have been though a lot and learning to deal with weeks like last week and this week is something we’ve got pretty good at."
On 22-year-old McCarthy’s inclusion on the bench, Farrell said: "His fight and his want to be involved is very evident to us all throughout, not just the warm-up games but the pre-season games, but since he’s not been playing over the last couple of weeks we keep see him growing all the time and it’s time for him to be put into a big game like this.
"He’s certainly going to add to our performance when he comes off the bench."
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