Hannah O'Connor says Ireland need to finish off their Women's Six Nations campaign with two home wins to back up their fighting talk.
Scott Bemand's side have finished third, behind perennial champions England and France, in the last two seasons, but they have only won two games in each of those campaigns.
Following a wooden spoon finish in 2023, Ireland beat Scotland and Wales in 2024, and Italy and Wales last year.
While the team had harboured ambitions of a second-place finish, notably talking up their chances prior to the Round 3 loss in France, they fell short once again.
The next step is to complete a triple crown of a different nature, adding two more wins to the victory over Italy.
With home games to come, against the Welsh in Belfast on Saturday (6.30pm), and in Aviva Stadium against Scotland on Sunday week, they have a tantalising opportunity to end the season on a high.
"[Ireland] want to be putting that distance between [Italy, Scotland and Wales] and the way you do that is with emphatic wins, especially with the three matches being at home against the teams that we know we should be beating," former Ireland forward O'Connor told the RTÉ Rugby podcast.
"To do that will really put a statement on all the talk that has gone before the tournament of where the girls want to be, where they want to be challenging and chasing after the way the France and then the England games went.
"Our matches against them didn't go as we wanted, there was still those shoots that it's getting closer and closer but that won't matter if we don't manage to get two solid results, two big wins against Wales and Scotland."
Ireland recorded a 57-20 win over Italy in round two in Galway, either side of away losses to the Red Roses and Les Bleus.
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Wales, meanwhile, sit bottom of the pile with three defeats from their meetings with Scotland (24-19), France (38-7) and England (62-24) and arrive to Affidea Stadium looking to avoid a third defeat to Ireland in a row and a ninth loss on the bounce in the competition.
"We've put a number on Wales over the last couple of years so they are not going to want to be coming over here and adding another loss," added the former Leinster player.
"Their most recent game against England... they're taking a hell of a lot of solace from the fact that their attacking game looked decent, and they got 24 points, including the try-scoring bonus point against the best in the world.
"We've seen them against France hang in there like we did, put in a good 40 minutes against them. So, they're not going to come over and just roll over, they're going to have a point to prove.
"[Ireland] are very much focused on the task in hand and [we know] from the girls talking about it, they will want to be winning no less than these two games starting this weekend at home.
"It's a huge opportunity to right the wrongs against France and just be able to really put that kind of attacking flare to it like we did when we brought Italy to Galway.
"There's a lot on offer but a big point to prove for both sides for various different reasons."
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Watch Ireland v Wales in the Guinness Women's Six Nations on Saturday from 6pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow our live blog on RTÉ.ie/sport and RTÉ News app and listen to Saturday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
