Andy Dunne joined Monday's OTB AM to reflect on the series win over Australia which capped a remarkable year for Irish rugby.
Coming off the back of a 6 Nations Grand Slam win and European and domestic success for Leinster - Dunne hailed it as Irish rugby's greatest ever year.
"It's been an unbelievable season - without doubt - our greatest ever year. The nitpicking is legitimate maybe on one ground only - that is the current style of play good enough to win a World Cup? That's very 'nitpickey' based on our history.
"I think this current side is a better side than the one that went out in 2015 and lost. The amount of work that it takes for us to score is a worry.
"New Zealand were 21-14 up after 45 minutes against France - they'd scored three tries but they'd been in the France 22 for about three minutes and five seconds - something like that.
"So their economy in terms of how they use the ball, how clinical they are to finish is very, very different which means their energy levels are probably higher throughout the game. We're causing ourselves a huge amount of work in order to score which is very difficult to defend and nobody really had an answer to it in the 6 Nations.
"I don't know in terms of the stats but I'd imagine we've got a bit more physical pain in the week post the game than other sides do. There's a hell of a lot of combat, there's a lot of impact, there's a lot of guys running directly into contact and a lot of guys going in to clear out rucks that could be slow if they weren't very aggressive at them.
"So, those are issues that could potentially, 18 months out from a World Cup, could be tricky but then again, if the players are well managed, and they are, and they get breaks - it could be just that our style is so difficult to contain - you have to match us physically and most teams are not doing that at the moment," he added.
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