Iain Henderson says today's 10 points Six Nations win over reigning champions Wales at the Aviva Stadium was an enjoyable one but there are improvements to be made as they prepare to face England in two weeks.
Jordan Larmour, Tadhg Furlong, Josh Van Der Flier and Andrew Conway all went over the line for the hosts to make it two wins from two in this campaign.
The home side looked far more convincing than their victory over Scotland just seven days ago.
27-year-old Henderson said the step-up in performance was important but he's also targeted areas of their game that can be worked upon in the next two weeks before they face England at Twickenham.
"After last week, we're happy to get the win, we knew it was a building block. Today, a few things didn't go right for us but it's another step in the right direction and we'll use this as a building block to leapfrog ourselves into a game in two weeks.
"Any game you go into you want to be on the front foot. It was an emphasis that we wanted to win a few more collisions upfront. Scotland definitely put it to us last week.
"We know that there's a lot of improvements to be made but we're happy with the performance and happy that the lads worked hard for each other out there today.
"The guys who came off the bench really added to the tempo, it's great to see, granted maybe not the Wales last try, but Ireland really keeping the foot on the throat and getting that try in the 76th minute - that's a good indication of where we want to go and what we want to build upon."
Henderson was also keen to emphasise how important morale and confidence amongst the group is, particularly as they return from a disappointing World Cup campaign.
"I think part of it is having confidence in the players around us. The quality we see in training throughout the week and the quality we see guys producing for their provinces we know it's there.
"Form is one of those elusive things in sport that no one can really explain but when you get it right it feels great playing out there, it feels great playing amongst guys who are excited to do things, who are excited to make things happen and that happened today and hopefully as this tournament goes on we can bring more and more of that.
"When you see guys winning collisions, guys winning turnovers, it means so much to the rest of the players around you and we really enjoy and relish seeing our teammates do well, the guys working hard, that's where going to give each other pats on the back, that's where we're going to enjoy reviewing games so we can bring out the best in each other."
As preparations now turn to taking on England at Twickenham the Triple Crown is just 80 minutes away.
Henderson says last year's World Cup warm-up game which they lost to Eddie Jones' side by 42 points will act as motivation.
"Obviously the Triple Crown is something that would be great to win.
"A lot of what the players will be thinking about the last game that we had in Twickenham and how that definitely didn't go the way we wanted it to go, we will definitely be looking back to that and to see how we can make improvements and what we can do.
"England will definitely be up for it, they'll be looking to go after us and come out all guns blazing so we've got a week off now, a week to regenerate and recuperate, try and fix what we think needs to be fixed and then going into that England week we can really ramp up.
"I think when any team puts 50 [points] on you there's an element of surprise there. Coming off the back of the preparation, it was the first game more or less for a lot of players, there's a lot of factors that differ from then and in-season games.
"We'll look back at that, we'll see what went wrong then and ultimately we'll want to produce a very different performance."
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