Ronan O'Gara believes Ireland have time on their side to recalibrate pre-Rugby World Cup.
The form of 2019 has not matched that of 2018 since the loss to England at the start of the Six Nations.
Speaking on Off The Ball as the France game closes in, the Ireland legend picked out three key phases pre-World Cup.
"I think there are three phases. You'll have the Six Nations phase, you'll have the post-Six Nations when the boys will be playing European. And then you'll have the World Cup warm-ups," he said.
"The minute the World Cup warm-ups end, you're looking to see who's fit, who's injured, who's ready to go.
France
"Then you go to Japan and that takes a life of its own completely. There's an absolute skill in itself. Prior form to that doesn't matter. Obviously it helps if you're one of the better teams in the world and you're not completely under-performing.
"But I actually think if Ireland's performance against England was to happen at the World Cup, it would have been too difficult to arrest the slide in a World Cup."
He added that post-England, the aim is to "stabilise". And he also picked out "flow" and "tempo" as the main issues Ireland will work on this week.
ROG also had his say on the France team that will visit Dublin this weekend.
"They are dangerous," he said.
"But I don't think the French themselves know how good or how bad they could be. It seems to me they have a game-plan but it's a non-rigid game-plan.
"The whole philosophy is in keeping with keeping the ball alive. That's what they train and they work."
But he also added that France's half-backs are "very exciting".
"They have some great individuals. But as well know, the challenge is how can you collectively combine that to make them a strong unit?"
You can watch the full chat with ROG and Ruaidhri O'Connor above.
Download the brand new OffTheBall App in the Play Store & App Store right now! We've got you covered!
Subscribe to OffTheBall's YouTube channel for more videos, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for the latest sporting news and content.
