Head coach Andy Farrell believes Ireland can move up the "pecking order" after admitting England and France are favourites for the Guinness Six Nations.
Ireland were forced to settle for third place in the 2020 competition having lost to Eddie Jones' eventual winners at Twickenham in February and been beaten by Les Bleus in Paris at the end of October.
Farrell, who has now had a full year in the hot seat, insists his side are not far behind the expected championship frontrunners but acknowledges that improvements are required.
"My job as a head coach is to make the team as good as they possibly can be, to play to our potential," said Farrell.
"There’s a pecking order at this moment in time where two teams are going in as favourites and we aspire to be that. I suppose that comes from hard work and performing under pressure.
"We want to be back up there in that type of light come the end of this tournament."
Farrell hopes to have Ireland in contention for glory when reigning champions England visit Dublin on the final weekend.
Asked about the current gap between his side and their two main title rivals, the Englishman replied: "We’re not far (behind) at all.
"We made a couple of comments at the end of the autumn that we know where we’re going and we know how far we are from being there.
"We thought we made good strides and we’re nearly at where we want to be.
"But this is it now. The Six Nations is a fantastic competition and it’s there to be won by a number of teams, but to do that there are a few things we need to keep getting better at.
"The question has been dealing with the big games; you’ve got to get through the first game, the second game to assess where you’re at before you start talking about the last game, which is where we want to be to try and compete to win a competition."
Ireland begin the tournament away to Wales on Sunday, 7 February.
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