Former Ireland centre Brian O'Driscoll has warned against the temptation to back Joe Schmidt's side as potential World Cup winners this year.
Ireland enjoyed a stunning run of form in 2018 which saw them storm to the Six Nations Grand Slam before beating New Zealand, Argentina and South Africa during the Autumn Internationals.
Schmidt's side had been tipped to win their first ever World Cup crown as a result of those victories, but they began their Six Nations defence with a chastening home defeat at the hands of England earlier this month.
Having described that result as a much-needed "reality check", O'Driscoll believes that his former team need to first set themselves the goal of making it past the quarter-finals at the World Cup, having never done so before.
"The fact we've never been out of a quarter-final... yes we want to get to a semi-final, but we were talking before the England game about potentially winning it," O'Driscoll told Sports Mole at the Laureus World Sports Awards.
"Let's try and deal with getting to the quarter-final first and then putting in the performance of a lifetime against a South Africa or a New Zealand, then anything after that is an added bonus.
"We need a lot of luck to go our way - we're a small player pool but we have a good, strong 30-man squad. We live in hope in Ireland that maybe we can do something great."
Ireland have been drawn in a pool alongside hosts Japan, Scotland, Russia and Samoa at this year's tournament.
Barney Corkhill
