New Zealand captain Kieran Read has dismissed suggestions that they could be caught cold by Ireland in Saturday's World Cup quarter-final.
The All Blacks have been in cruise control since taking care of South Africa in their thrilling opening pool match.
Facile wins over Canada and Namibia followed before Typhoon Hagibis cancelled their final tie with Italy, affording the reigning champions a two-week break.
And when they take on Ireland in Tokyo it will be nearly a month since they needed to hit top gear to beat the Springboks.
But Kiwi skipper Read insists they won't be liable to start slowly against Ireland. "I don't think we've really seen this as a break," he said.
"For us, the time between games has just been a bit longer so we've trained really well and there's a bit on this game (quarter-final). We turn up and expect things to happen or go home.
"Final games are mental as well as physical. The eight teams left are capable of winning the competition and physically probably mentally, it's about who can step up to the pressure moment when the opportunity presents itself."
That being said, Read revealed yesterday [Sun] that the All Blacks had an intense training session on Friday to get the adrenaline pumping once again.
He said: "It was a big session for us but I'm not going to give away exactly what we did. Really for us, we needed a physical hit-out and we got that through our own training.
"It was fun, we needed something like that, and today we've been at the gym setting ourselves up for the week ahead so I think we're in pretty good shape."
Ireland had never beaten New Zealand in a Test match until Soldier Field in Chicago in 2016. And then they repeated the trick at the Aviva last November.
And Read, who watched Japan's victory over Scotland yesterday [Sun] to set up another Ireland-New Zealand clash, was coy in assessing Joe Schmidt's recent win over Samoa.
He said of the Irish performance: "Pretty good, with a man down, to get a score like that. They were certainly pretty physical and tough up front."
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