Tadhg Furlong claims that there is no extra pressure on the Ireland players as they try to down the All Blacks - and go further than ever before in a World Cup.
Ireland have never smashed through their last eight glass ceiling.
If they're going to do it this time, they'll have to do it the hardest way possible by beating the back to back world champs.
“You might get a bit of confidence from doing stuff teams hadn’t done before but, at the same time, you don’t get bogged down by it," said Furlong, who scored the opening try against Samoa on Saturday.
"There’s a process we go through to get ready for a game, no matter the occasion or the game, you try to stick to it to try to prepare as well as you can.
"I suppose there’s a lot of external factors and noise that you can get caught up in if you want to.
"But I think the player group we have here really trusts what we do in a week to get ready for a game. I suppose we block out as much of it as you can, really."
Furlong only got four hours sleep after the Samoa game as he finds it hard to sleep after playing - but he was happy Ireland got the game in, whereas the All Blacks had the feet up.
"I like consistently playing, it keeps you in the groove," said the tighthead. "I often find when I have a week or a longer period... two weeks without a game, you get a bit rusty, especially at scrum time, you just lose that small little bit of feel.
"It’s similar at ruck time. So yeah, I’ve no problem with playing. I prefer playing".
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