The break week in the Guinness Men's and Women's Six Nations will always be judged with the benefit of hindsight.
If Ireland lose against Wales this Saturday, there will be a lingering feeling that they had too long to dwell on the mistakes in the defeat to Italy on Easter Sunday. If, however, Scott Bemand's side pick up their first win of the championship, the extra few days prep will have no doubt been invaluable in picking the players back up off the ground.
For Ireland, balancing out the positives and negatives will have made for an interesting body of work in the last few days.
While their defeat to Italy was riddled with errors, they were, in theory, errors that should not be difficult to fix. Executing simple overlaps and trimming down the handling mistakes should come relatively easily on the training pitch.
And the biggest area of focus in the last week, Bemand says, has been showing the players how close they have been to executing their chances.
"There was a lot of good stuff that went on against Italy, so we sort of reminded the girls that there's some good stuff that they did, and they've got to tap into that," he said.
"Perhaps, rather than making it harder for ourselves to win games, we're going to give ourselves permission to go and convert some of that pressure into points."
The Ireland head coach says he and his management team have had to lean into "the coaching craft" in recent days as they try to shine a light on the areas for improvement, while also acknowledging the foundations that are in place.
"We've always said, we want to be a group that is honest. We looked pretty hard at it and we saw some areas of the game that we need to go after. We’ve done plenty of reflecting on it.
"We obviously had that fallow week, which lets us roll our sleeves up and put some stuff right. There’s quite a natural thing, where the girls want to be pretty hard on themselves.
"You’ve got to just balance it and you’ve got to work out where the barometer sits in terms of you need confidence, because confidence will bring out your skill-set under pressure. You’ve also got to put your hand up if you’ve done something wrong and go 'actually, I’m a little bit accountable for that’.
"We seem to be getting the balance about right. The truth of it will be, we’ll see it against Wales, but I’ve every confidence in the group. Strong belief in the group that we reflect on stuff well, we go after the right things. The girls, how they’re training, you just asked around selections and what have you."
The Ireland head coach also reserved praise for his co-captain Edel McMahon on Tuesday.
McMahon was a surprise omission from the squad for the Round 2 defeat to Italy, but Bemand says the flanker has responded impressively to the setback.
"A credit say to Tricky [Edel McMahon] over the last two weeks’ training.
"She’s absolutely training the house down, trying to show what our complete identity looks like. Hopefully that is bringing out the best in the group," he added.
Saturday's opponents Wales appear to be a difficult team to figure out ahead of the meeting in Cork.
Ioan Cunningham's side have also lost both opening games of the championship, beaten 20-18 at home to Scotland in their opener before a predictably heavy defeat to England.
Wales, who hammered Ireland in 2023 enroute to earning qualification for the top tier of WXV last season, have now lost five games in a row in all competitions.
"There's a few of these games that have been on a bit of a knife-edge, and can come down to a last play, a couple of points either way. We had a similar experience with the Italy fixture.
"Wales, last year they got to WXV1, so I think they're on the back of a losing streak of five games, so they'll be looking to turn that around like any of us will have.
"They have a well-supported back room staff, a lot of their players are playing fairly consistently together in the PWR [Premiership Women's Rugby], and they're a pretty settled group.
"We know they're strengths, bringing them over to Ireland, show what we can deliver," he added.
Listen to live commentary of Ireland v Wales in the Guinness Women's Six Nations from 4.45pm on RTÉ Radio 1's Saturday Sport, and follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app.
