Ireland assistant coach Les Kiss insists the squad must improve if they are to retain their RBS 6 Nations title, despite their current winning form during the autumn internationals.
With three successive victories this month, including against southern hemisphere heavyweights South Africa and Australia, Ireland are currently on a seven match unbeaten run.
However, Kiss believes these results do not necessarily guarantee a smooth transition into their 2015 RBS 6 Nations campaign.
Reinforcing that no title win is assured, Kiss is urging his troop to keep his feet on the ground for now.
“It’s pleasing to get the results but we’ve been in the game too long to know that it doesn’t guarantee us anything over the horizon,” he said. “It doesn’t guarantee us anything for the Six Nations.
“It is what you do leading up to that and how you deal with the reality in that moment. “
Injuries to Chris Henry and Andrew Trimble have meant Ireland’s coaches have relied on more inexperienced players this autumn.
And Australian Kiss is happy with the strength and depth of the Irish team as he looks to improve all areas of their game in order to defend their RBS 6 Nations title.
“I think it’s a strength of our team that all parts work together, and sometimes some parts aren’t as good as they can be while other parts have to work harder to negate any negative effect in that area,” he added.
“We’re just trying to build a more complete way that we can evolve our game as a whole.
“I think the (upcoming December) camp will be where we look at the whole game and see how it all fits together to make sure we’re on top of things that we feel we need to go through to the Six Nations and defend that.”
Visit our official RBS 6 Nations Instagram page to follow all the best images from the Championship
