Dan Sheehan believes the nature of Ireland's Grand Slam victory over England will stand to the team when they face the might of New Zealand tomorrow evening in Paris.
Andy Farrell’s side wrapped up the Six Nations title with a hard-fought 29-16 victory over the Red Rose last March.
Unprecedented 14-point favourites coming into the Aviva Stadium clash, Ireland had to dig deep to eventually overcome a dogged English resistance.
Farrell, at the time, admitted it "wasn’t the best performance" but was pleased that they "ground" out a result.
Not playing well and still finding a way gives the team confidence, according to hooker Sheehan, speaking to reporters ahead of their Rugby World Cup quarter-final clash at Stade de France (8pm).
"I think those sort of games where it’s win or die, it’s extremely valuable," said the 25-year-old Leinster man.
"You’ve got to go out and perform and that probably wasn't our best game at all. We took a good review out from that game and we saw a lot of areas that we could improve on.
"When it comes down to it, you just have to figure out how to win the game.
"If tomorrow goes to the end or if we have extra-time or anything, we just have to make sure we win the game.
"There’s obviously plans in place to make sure we don’t get to that point and we hope that we are in a position that we don’t have to scramble.
"Looking back to those times we didn’t perform but then came out on top is valuable."
Number 8 Caelan Doris, who has won three out of four games against the All Blacks, spoke about the moments before kick-off and facing the famous haka.
"There’ll be excitement, there’ll be a lot of nerves," said the 25-year-old.
"Usually, for me, the nerves peak a couple of hours out and as we get to the changing room and get out on to the pitch for the warm-up it kind of dissipates a little bit.
"Yeah, but in the few minutes [before kick-off] there’ll be nerves, there’ll be excitement, there’ll be an eagerness to get stuck in.
"In terms of the haka, we’ll probably do what we’ve done quite a bit in terms of the 10-metre line, maybe flirting with that a little bit. I’m looking forward to it big time."
In the event of a draw, the game will first go to a 20-minute period of extra time, which would then be followed by an additional lot of up to ten minutes where the first score of any description wins the match.
If still level after that then the tie will be decided by place kicks, with each team nominating five kickers to take five shots.
"We have spoken about it. The players know who they are. Andrew Porter, Dan Sheehan, Tadhg Beirne," said forwards coach Mike Catt with a smile.
"So they’ve definitely put in an extra couple of hours with their kicking 'cos they kick every day anyway.
"It’s one of those, players are aware of it. It’s a long way to get to that situation. You’d like to think with the golden point now in 10 minutes one side would take their opportunity and score points.
"The players who are on the pitch know who they are and fingers crossed we put them through the middle."
Meanwhile, Catt confirmed that all players came through this morning's training session and declared winger Mack Hansen "all good to run freely".
The backs coach also laughed at the suggestion that Ireland had sent a photographer to New Zealand's training session yesterday.
A 15-minute section is open to all media and a photographer from an Irish agency, who have a partnership with the IRFU, was present, as permitted by Rugby World Cup regulations.
"The rules say yes, as long as they're standing with the rest of the photographers, they can [attend training]," said World Rugby official Greg Thomas.
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