Chris Farrell says that Champions Cup qualification hasn't been discussed in the Munster dressing-room - despite only one Irish province being guaranteed a place in Europe.
The new united Rugby Championship format will see teams qualify for Europe on a geographical basis, so one team each from Ireland, South Africa and Wales will progress as winners of their respective regional pool - and one from Scotland or Italy.
After that it has been made harder for the provinces, with derbies making up a third of their League matches - which have been reduced from 21 to 18.
Below the pool winners, the others will be hoping to scramble for one of the four highest-ranked loser spots up for grabs.
The provinces was out-voted in a bid to shoot down the proposal and will have to live with it until at least the end of the 2022-23 season.
"No. It hasn’t been talked about," said Farrell. "It’s important we have a couple of home games at the start and it’s important we get off to a good start.
"The fact there’s less games in the season makes every game more important.
"There’s extra competition in these games now so it’s going to be huge that we kick on from the very start, get a few wins under our belt.
"There’s obviously no guarantees as regards qualifying but I think we’ll just focus on trying to win every game at a time. That’s what we have been doing for the last couple of years.
"We've got to trust that we’ll qualify if we do that.
"It doesn’t even have to be discussed but we expect to be competing at the end of the season in the top competitions.
"We absolutely expect to be competing. If we were to not qualify that would certainly be disappointing, really disappointing."
The Reds centre is still coming back from a groin issue that disrupted the end of his season last term.
He's hoping to return in the near future and has his sights set on challenging for a starting Ireland spot, but knows it's a tough ambition.
"Personally I'd like to get over this injury and get back to full fitness, which isn't far off, get playing as soon as possible and put myself in the best place possible to get into the international window," he said.
"I want to try and compete with the guys who are in the centre there, as hard as that is because we now have two Lions (Robbie Henshaw and Bundee Aki) and Ringer and Stu McCloskey and James Hume and such quality there that it's so, so competitive.
"First and foremost for me it's getting back competing for Munster.
"We've got great centres there as well so I'll have to earn my place back in that squad and if we can win as a collective in Munster then it makes your job pretty easy and you're in the shop window, so to get back winning for Munster is all I'm focusing on at the minute."
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