Some players would have been content to make 14 appearances in the Six Nations. This weekend, Johnny Sexton will lead Ireland out for his 14th season in the championship.
With 56 Test matches in the Six Nations, only seven players have played more times in the competition.
And as he prepares for appearance number 57 this Saturday against Wales, it's easy to see how he still has that same drive at the age of 37.
"I'm as nervous this week as I was however many years ago, 2010," he says, as he talks about what the tournament means to him.
"That kind of atmosphere, the anticipation, the bus drives into the ground, the rivalries. It's got everything really, doesn't it?
"You don’t always get that with every competition so it’s very special. It’s hard to win, it’s hard to do well in. Every single game is tough, for each reason different and that’s what makes it so special."
In his 13 previous campaigns, he's been able to lift the trophy three times, one of those as part of a Grand Slam in 2018.
The five years since have seen huge changes to the Irish team, with first-team regulars like Caelan Doris, Hugo Keenan, James Lowe, Dan Sheehan and Tadhg Beirne having never experienced that feeling.
And Sexton says while they aren't thinking beyond the challenge of Wales this Saturday, he's eager for this current side to experience winning a title together.
"[Winning the championship] is in the back of the mind I think. Everything's been on this first game. Winning a Triple Crown last year, we did put an onus on that because we hadn’t won too many of them either so that was special.
"So I know we haven’t won the silverware that we want, but a small bit with that [Triple Crown] and obviously going to New Zealand, we get a trophy for that, but again it’s not those type of trophies that you talk about in a few years to come.
"There’s a big onus to try and do something in this championship but it’s all about this game. We haven’t set goals or anything, it’s literally been about this game."
Much of the build up to this game has centred around the Ireland captain, and the returning Wales head coach Warren Gatland, after Sexton was left out of his squad for the 2021 British and Irish Lions tour of South Africa.
Earlier this week, Gatland said he's been proven wrong by the Leinster man, while Sexton says he doesn't bear a grudge for the decision.
And he says when the whistle blows at the start of Saturday's game, he'll be thinking about the 15 red shirts opposite him, rather than a head coach in a suit.
"I'm not playing against him, I’m playing against Wales.
"It’s his team obviously but look, what happened two years ago, it’s gone now. You don’t get it back. Of course, did it motivate me? Yeah. It gave me a bit of time to mull things over and go: 'Do I want to go out like this or do I want to go out in two or three years’ time at the top?’
"It was gutting. I’d saved my Lions’ Test jerseys and we had them framed and I said to [my wife] Laura, I wasn't putting them on the wall until the South African tour was over because I wanted the three tours together, but that’s life.
"Everyone has setbacks across all ways. You look at some lads. You look at someone of the calibre of Garry (Ringrose), he’s 28 and he’s never been on a Lions’ tour. Just with pure luck and injuries. I’ve been very lucky to go on two but you’ve got to take the motivation sometimes where you can."
Barring a last-minute setback, Sexton will be named at out-half for this Saturday's game at the Principality Stadium, having overcome a facial injury which required a minor procedure in January.
Having clashed heads with Connacht's Jarrad Butler in their New Year's Day meeting with Connacht, Sexton suffered a nasty looking bump on his face, but after an initial scare it would rule him out for the opening rounds of the championship, he's been passed fit, having trained with a protective mask up until Wednesday.
And while he hasn't featured since 1 January, he says he's confident his muscle memory can guide him through his return.
"If you go out and train half-arsed you won’t learn anything. So that’s one thing I’ve been able to do over the years, to commit to training properly because I want to. I love training so we’ll see how we go on Saturday.
"I’m sure the pace of the game will be tough, we’ll blowing at times, we all well. It will shock everyone, not only me who hasn’t played in a month or, you know, I’ve only played once since November so we’ll see how we go."
"It’s a huge challenge for us but we’ve said over the last two years that we want these big challenges. We wanted to go to Twickenham last year after not a good game in France. We wanted to go down to New Zealand and get something. We wanted to back it up in November.
"We want these challenges because no matter what happens we’ll learn from it come World Cup time."
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