If any players in the Irish rugby squad start feeling complacent after Saturday's resounding win against England, Andy Farrell only has to show his team a replay of last year’s Guinness Six Nations clash with Wales.
The sides meet next Friday in their penultimate game of the championship, and the narrative heading into the game is remarkably similar to their clash in Cardiff 12 months ago.
Just like 2025, Ireland will be heading into the game off the back of an impressive away win and a fallow week, taking on a struggling and winless Welsh side.
Ireland won 27-18 at the Principality Stadium last February, but needed to score 17 unanswered second half points to overturn an 18-10 deficit.
The Welsh were at a low ebb back then; Warren Gatland has departed as head coach the previous week after a dreadful run of form, with Matt Sherratt taking interim charge for the remainder of the championship.
The ex-Cardiff coach is now an assistant under head coach Steve Tandy, who has lost six of his first seven games in charge, the only win coming against Japan in November.
Hammered by England and France in their opening two championship games in 2026, Wales looked far improved last time out against Scotland, racing into a 20-5 lead only to suffer a heartbreaking 26-23 defeat.
And while that condemned them to a 14th consecutive championship defeat, Ireland assistant coach Simon Easterby (above) insists they are improving game by game.
"I think they've got a really good coaching group that have gained confidence from this weekend's performance," the Ireland defence coach said.
"I know it didn't deliver the result that they would have liked, but they've got some strong carriers, like Aaron Wainwright is probably carrying as well as any forward in the Six Nations at the moment, and often that's on the back foot.
"But they get into your 22, they're hard to defend against. They play with speed and they play with width.
"I thought [Sam] Costelow made a big difference to them on the weekend when he had front-foot ball.
"It allowed him to play on top of Scotland and make it difficult."
Easterby knows next week’s opponents better than most.
As a long-time player and coach at the Llanelli Scarlets, the Ireland assistant still lives in Wales with his family, which led to him being heavily linked with their head coach vacancy this time last year.
The 50-year-old was acting as head coach when the sides met this time last year, taking interim charge while Andy Farrell was on leave with the British and Irish Lions.
Of the Wales side that started against Ireland last year, only Tomos Williams and Dafydd Jenkins did so in their last outing against Scotland in Round 3.
But despite such an upheaval in personnel and coaching, Easterby believes their game plan with the ball remains the same as it was last year.
"I think there's still some attacking structures that are similar with Matt Sherratt (above) being involved," he added.
"Obviously there's different personnel in terms of players on the pitch, but certainly the way they want to play when they get front-foot ball, the way they want to play to width and the way they attack, I thought was some of their best rugby on the weekend against Scotland.
"So, I think obviously things will change a little bit [from 2025], but we'll certainly take a little bit of that and make sure that we're aware of what they want to try and do when they have the ball."
And although next week’s opponents remain winless, Ireland’s defence coach identified one key area where they have excelled.
He said: "They have been very good in the 22 actually. There have been five tries and four of them have come from tap-penalties so they are really effective once they get into that part of the pitch.
"They are growing in confidence, they will feel like they should have held out and beaten Scotland but they had a bit of a switch-off on a halfway restart which is seven points for nothing almost and that might have been the difference.
"They are well coached and a proud group of players and we need to make sure that we keep getting better ourselves."
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While Ireland were ruthless in attack last Saturday, they did have to weather an early storm from England in the opening quarter, particularly in the minutes leading up to Jamison Gibson-Park's opening try.
And Ireland’s defence coach that early defensive stand was a particularly pleasing aspect of the 21-point win.
"There was a few times they got into our 22 and we stole a lineout, we also got a turnover in the corner after they did a front peel, Tadhg [Beirne] got a poach," he said.
"The discipline thing was pleasing because there are so many opportunities to give away a penalty in defence than there is in attack. Heightened awareness from officials for the back-foot.
"It can literally be centimetres at time and if the ruck shifts and we don’t shift with it then there is a penalty advantage and hands in ruck so the discipline part of that I thought was fantastic.
"Although we defended really well at times, especially in our 22, we still coughed up a couple of tries which we were disappointed at looking back.
"Some really good sets, pleasing, and it's nice that we spent a bit of time in there and we don’t concede points or penalties."
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