If you can't escape the hype, then you better embrace it.
Bubbling just beneath the surface of the 2023 Six Nations championship has been the niggling feeling that if Ireland played to par, then they’d find themselves exactly where they have found themselves: three shots up coming down the last.
"I think enjoy it, it's something special," was hooker Cian Healy’s message for Irish fans after yesterday’s 22-7 win over the Scotland, just the second time in the last nine meetings that there’s been more than a score between the sides at Murrayfield.
"It's an opportunity to do something very special at home, St Patrick's weekend.
"It's a good buzz of a weekend anyway and if we can add to that, if we can add to what goes on at home and for people abroad that might watch it, if you make everyone feel a part of something special then you've done your job.
"You've made people happy and something people will remember."
Ireland won the Five Nations championship in Dublin in 1985 and claimed their first every Grand Slam, in 1948, in Belfast.
Their four Six Nations victories, 2009, 2014, 2015 and 2018, all came with final day victories on foreign soil, namely Cardiff, Paris, Edinburgh and London.
This time, if Andy Farrell’s charges - 15-point favourites on this Monday morning - can beat England, they’ll get to lift the crown at home, maybe even, we can hope, with the strains of Molly Malone ringing in their ears.
They’ll play it down, of course, during this week’s media briefings, which, starting with an injury update this afternoon that won’t make for pleasant reading, will contain all the usual cliches aimed at dampening down the expectations of the fans.
"It would be the stuff of dreams really," conceded Johnny Sexton after the game.
"What you grow up wanting to do, I don’t know why you grow up wanting be the captain of Ireland, maybe because the players you admire the most were captains but to do it would be dream come true stuff.
"It’s a great group of lads so to lead them is very special. So who wouldn’t be [emotional]?
"Who wouldn’t be proud? Even just playing for Ireland to win a Grand Slam would be something.
"It’s going to be a big week, there’s going to be plenty of hype, there’s going to be lots of distractions, tickets and family and all that and we need to really get down to business and get a big performance because these guys are going to be really tough to play against.
"They’re going to be hurting from [the 53-10 loss to France].
"They’re going to be wanting to show what playing for England means to them and they’re a good team, a better team than they showed yesterday. So it’s going to be a really tough game."
Ireland restricted the Scots, who had entertained title and Triple Crown hopes, to a single score and did so as front-liners dropped like flies, leaving a flanker to throw the ball into the lineout and a prop to hook.
The victory came at the cost of a few men who will be ruled out of the Dublin date, with Farrell's post-match comments suggesting that Garry Ringrose, Iain Henderson and Ronan Kelleher will require time off to recover, more hopeful was he that Dan Sheehan and Caelan Doris will be in the mix.
"Yeah, we’re on a plane tonight so there’ll be much celebrating, we’ll enjoy each other’s company tonight flying back and then straight back into Carton House," said the man who will now plot the downfall of his native country, captained by his son, Owen.
"We’ll recover properly tomorrow and then a few down days to make sure that we get our legs back and then we’ll have a hit-out or two and we’ll get our plan together and go again.
"It is what dreams are made of, like Johnny was saying, to play England at home to earn the right to take it to the last weekend, on Paddy’s weekend, it doesn’t get any better than that.
"So we need to get across our work early and make sure that we’re in the right space come Tuesday or Wednesday for training."
Steve Borthwick and the England camp will make noises about spoiling the party next Saturday but the new boss has an unenviable task to coax a performance out of his side that would come close to being good enough.
Grand Slams don’t come around that often, we might as well embrace it.
Watch highlights of the weekend's Six Nations action on Against the Head on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player from 8pm.
