Ireland out-half Jonathan Sexton believes he underperformed in the 2011 Rugby World Cup and is grateful for the chance to make amends in this autumn's tournament.
Sexton came into the 2011 tournament, having apparently established himself as Ireland's number one out-half but saw his now Racing Metro assistant coach Ronan O'Gara assume a more dominant role as the competition progressed.
"The World Cup was a big learning curve for me," Sexton told RTÉ's Second Captains. "It was the one stage in my career that I maybe, looking back, took for granted a little bit.
"I'd just come off the back of a Heineken Cup win with Leinster. I was playing some of the best rugby of my career. I maybe took the foot of the gas a little bit.
"It's maybe a bit of a regret looking back on it now but thankfully I was young enough that I have another World Cup."
"You hear guys like Brian O'Driscoll say that was the biggest regret of his career, not winning that Welsh game"
Ireland recorded a famous 15-6 win over Australia in Pool C but their tournament ended at a familiar stage with a bitterly disappointing quarter-final defeat to Wales.
"You hear guys like Brian O'Driscoll say that was the biggest regret of his career, not winning that Welsh game," said Sexton.
"I would have loved to have been on the pitch that day. I obviously played the last 20 minutes but things didn't work out for me in that competition.
"But I'll learn from it and move on. The setbacks always make you stronger going forward."
Back-to-back Six Nations champions Ireland are now ranked third in the world (behind New Zealand and South Africa) but Sexton was keen to not to raise expectations Ireland can win the tournament, insisting that Joe Schmidt's side would first worry about topping a group that contains France and Italy.
"When you go into any competition, you're going in to win it but our focus would probably be on our pool, to try and win the pool and our first game," he said.
"There's so much rugby still to be played in terms of the World Cup warm-up games, the initial pool games... we don't know what state we're going to be in come then, injury-wise and form-wise. It's a long way away.
"But you do go into every competition trying to win it. I think we've got the capability of winning our pool and we'll probably reset our goals at that stage and go for it."
