Jack Conan says Ireland had a "massive right to wrong" after a comprehensive win over France at Lansdowne Road.
Reeling since a four-try loss to England on the opening day, the champions looked far from convincing in subsequent away wins over Scotland and Italy.
The manner of the loss to Eddie Jones' men, who will claim the title if they overcome Scotland, and Wales fail to beat Ireland next Saturday, shook Joe Schmidt's side and there were fears that another stuttering performance in the penultimate competitive game before the World Cup would set them back further.
"We showed what we are about," said Conan, who came on to win his 13th caps for the injured Josh van der Flier, and scored Ireland's third try during the first half of the 26-14 win.
"We showed what we are capable of even with a lot of changes.
"Rob [Kearney, calf strain] dropping out last minute and Jordan [Larmour] coming in and having an absolute stormer.
"It just shows how hungry lads are to perform well and take their opportunities. We're in a really good place.
"The other [games] were wins but this was a performance.
"It mightn't have been 80 minutes but for 50, 60, 70 minutes we showed some really good stuff, got back to the basics, held the ball, went through so many phases and made them work hard.
"We were so much better today than we had been in previous weeks. It's about spring-boarding forward now, not taking a step back but be pushing on to be better again.
"We came on in leaps and bounds from a few weeks ago – even against Italy and Scotland and England. We had a massive right to wrong.
"The last time we were here we lost against England in the fashion we did and we didn't do ourselves any justice so it was great to come out today an show that was a blip and that we're back."
Wales are favourites to win the title but Ireland have a history of busting grand-slam hopes, as they did on the final days of the 2001, 2011 and 2017 campaigns.
"We know how good Wales can be so we are going to have to be at our best," said the Leinster back row.
"It's going to take a dominant physical performance to beat Wales."
