Pete Wilkins reckons Connacht are in a much better place than last season even if they find themselves lower down in the table.
The Westerners topped the standings after three rounds last season, winning three from three, including a victory over Saturday opponents Ulster.
This year they have taken two bonus points from a narrow loss to Munster and impressed in wins over Sharks and Scarlets, leaving them on 11 points.
Things began to unravel in game four of the 2023/24 season when they fell to a 25-22 loss in Edinburgh, thanks to a Ben Healy dropgoal with the last kick of the match, and then lost three of the next four, ultimately finishing in 11th and outside the play-off places.
"There's certainly a synchronicity that we need to be aware of," Wilkins told RTÉ Sport.
"For me it’s the bigger learning of what the difference has been for us across the first three games of the season, compared to us across the majority of last season.
"The similarity is we’ve got off to a decent start, but I think we won’t draw on the one game as much.
"It’s about what are we seeing rugby-wise, what are we seeing spirit-wise and identity-wise and what has brought us these points in rounds one, two and three.
"Last season is there as a tiny reminder that we were pretty dissatisfied with a few of our performances and not that long ago that we got off to a decent start and then faded out as the season went so feet are firmly on the ground here."
Connacht needed a late Cathal Forde penalty to edge the Scarlets in a stop-start affair in Llanelli last Friday night, while Ulster are off the back of two heavy defeats in South Africa.
Wilkins said he wouldn’t read much into last Saturday’s 47-21 loss to Bulls.
"We’ve got belief coming into this game, we’ve got a degree of form," said the Englishman.
"I’m not sure Ulster’s performances in South Africa will bother them too much. I reckon they picked that side against the Bulls with Connacht in mind the other side of it.
"There were some important players who were coming off the bench, or were subbed early and when you hear Richie Murphy's comments after that they weren’t too disappointed with the result, I think they were looking at it with us in mind.
"They’ll have some degree of energy preserved from that and to get back in front of their home fans they’ll be determined to get off to a good start and get their fans involved.
"That Scarlets performance, as delighted as we were with the result, we were disappointed with the performance overall.
"And that’s probably timely as well because we are going up to Ulster, not taking anything for granted and that all departments of our game need to be better if we are going to get the points up there."
Meanwhile, captain Cian Prendergast (above) is on target to feature in Belfast (kick-off 8pm) as he goes through return to play protocols following a head injury assessment.
Joe Joyce (neck), Josh Ioane (head) and Jordan Duggan (ankle) have also recovered from recent injuries, while Shamus Hurley-Langton (shoulder) is out.
Sam Illo, who suffered an ankle injury against Sharks in round two, is not expected back until after the autumn international window.
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