Week two of block two is complete in Ireland's Rugby World Cup training camp. When they return to Carton House on Sunday 30 July they'll be into their opening game week, and the real business will begin.
It may still be seven weeks until Andy Farrell's side take to the field at the Nouveau Stade de Bordeaux for their Pool B opener against Romania, but the three warm-up games against Italy (5 August), England (19 August) and Samoa (26 August) represent a chance for several of the wider players in the squad to put their hand up and stake their claim for a place in the final 33-man squad.
Since gathering at the High Performance Centre in Dublin in the middle of June, Ireland's squad have broken up their camp into blocks; two weeks together in camp before a week of downtime, followed by the latest fortnight of preparation.
They parted again on Friday, a chance to recharge the batteries and decompress from the intensity of World Cup preparation. While it's not a week in camp, it's also not a week off.
"We still have to do stuff pretty much every day next week," utility-back Jimmy O'Brien (below) says of the upcoming week.
Each player will still have their training programmes and GPS units. Some will train individually, others will meet up in groups of two and three to get their sessions in over the week.
"It's been nice breaking it up. It can be pretty intense, long days, so it's nice to go off and train by yourself, or there's a few lads around and you'd go training with them. It's more chilled but you're still doing the work. You train in the mornings and have the afternoons free, so it's nice.
"We're straight into match week the week after so you have to stay on top of it," he added.
Breaking the camp up into chunks is as much about resting the players mentally as it is physically.
Whether it's a week in the sun, or a few days hiding away here at home, the mental freshness plays a huge role according to Robbie Henshaw, who is now into his third World Cup campaign with Ireland.
"It's massive, even our S&C coaches are highlighting a big thing is the importance of recovery and having time away," he says.
"Even switching your head off from rugby and overthinking things.
"That can feed into loss of sleep, anxiety, things like that which can contribute to injuries. Studies have been done on it which is very interesting, how stress-related injuries can happen. It's interesting, the week my grandmother passed away before Toulouse [in April], I picked up a quad injury out of nowhere on the Monday in Leinster and they reckon that was a stress-related injury."
While Henshaw knows these camps well by now, O'Brien (above) is one of 22 players in the squad for whom this international camp is new territory.
In normal circumstances, O'Brien would be used to gathering with the Irish squad a week or two out from their Test window, rather than doing a full pre-season in camp.
"It's been good. Tough, but enjoyable. It's been a bit of craic, and then obviously now we're getting more towards games and our first game in two weeks, so we're concentrating on that.
"It does feel a little bit different, just that there hasn't been a game. This is like a pre-season, all training weeks and you're definitely not looking ahead.
"It does feel different when you have a tournament coming and are training for one specific thing," the 26-year-old says.
Opposition analysis is starting to take shape as well, with the Irish players and coaches getting their first glances of the southern hemisphere sides who have been in Rugby Championship action in recent weeks.
South Africa are the number one focus, with the defending world champions dominating Australia in their opener in Pretoria, before a poor start against the All Blacks last weekend saw them beaten 35-20 in Auckland.
Henshaw says that while Ireland's haven't been looking at the Springboks in great detail yet, they've been keeping a watchful eye on the opening rounds of the tournament.
"I've been having a look at it. I've been exhausted at the weekends so I haven't been getting up early for the games, just going back and watching them.
"It's been good to watch, see what the other teams are up to. That championship is top-class for them to kick into a World Cup.
"I suppose it's good timing for us to have our first game [against Italy] so we'll be sharp as well. But yeah, the quality has been good. New Zealand and South Africa were on fire on the weekend and Argentina are doing really well, so it's been a good watch."
Watch live coverage of Ireland's Rugby World Cup warm-up games v Italy (5 August), England (19 August) and Samoa (26 August) live on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, listen to live commentary on RTÉ Radio 1 or follow a live blog on RTÉ.ie and the RTÉ News app.
