Former Ireland international Alison Miller has pointed to Wales' progress as an example to show that the tide could turn in a positive direction for Irish women's rugby in the long-term.
With one match left against Scotland, the current Tik Tok Six Nations campaign has seen Ireland lose their first four games with Saturday's 48-0 defeat to England in Cork leaving them on course for the wooden spoon alongside a scoring difference of minus 141.
While Greg McWilliams' team may be at a low ebb amid a difficult few years, 2013 grand slam winner Miller reasoned that situations can change quickly and need not feel set in stone.
"You have to be optimistic and it's not that long ago that Ireland were competitive," she told RTÉ's Game On.
"I'm not even talking about competitive in terms of winning the Six Nations or grand slams, I mean competitive in beating Italy, Scotland and Wales and having it not be a huge score against England.
"That's not that long ago. Things can change in two to three years' time. You look at Wales. They're a case in point, lost to Ireland, I think it was 48-0 in 2021 and then two years later they've turned that around with investment, with increased standards and training that comes from professionalism.
"So you're hoping that happens and at the end of the day, you need England and France to be absolutely ruthless for everyone else to catch up."
Miller also suggested better fast-tracking of raw talent from other sporting codes to widen the player pool.
"I still think there can be some fast-tracking done. You'll see in other countries they do a lot of talent transferring from one sport to the other. We don't really tend to do that in this country, it happens by accident sometimes with some of our good athletes," she said.
"Maybe we should look at other countries and sports that have done that very well. I'm from the country and you often go to a small rugby club and you might be doing a session and you'll see some girl who's on the off-season from GAA or soccer giving it a bit of a laugh and they don't realise how good they are.
"They are not good technically, they might not know the language of the game but if someone worked with them intensively, fast-tracking, transferring them, they could be very successful and be a very good rugby player."
Watch England v France (1pm) and Italy v Wales (3.30pm) in the Women's Six Nations live on Saturday on RTÉ Player
Watch Leinster v Toulouse in the Heineken Champions Cup semi-final live on Saturday from 2.15pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, follow a live blog on the RTÉ News app or RTÉ.ie/Sport and listen to live commentary on Saturday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
