Andy Farrell praised Ireland's "resilience, guts and character" after a winning display against South Africa - but Johnny Sexton says it will mean nothing if it's not backed up by winning trophies.
Skipper Sexton admitted the 19-16 victory over the reigning world champions was "right up there" in terms of career achievements.
"We didn’t play our best rugby but that’s also a very pleasing thing," said Sexton, who played on despite suffering a dead leg early in the second half and scored a vital 74th minute penalty to put the hosts out of sight.
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"Maybe a few years ago we would have crumbled or not shown the guts we did there."
Ireland, currently ranked first in the world rankings, backed up their standing with their 10th win on the spin at the Aviva Stadium.
Second half tries from Josh van der Flier and Mack Hansen set the platform before Sexton struck.
Coming on the back of the summer Tour triumph in New Zealand, expectations will rise to fever pitch with France 2023 less than a year away.
But Sexton said: "We're building well but we have to win. We have to win trophies.
"We had a Triple Crown, which was very pleasing last year, but if you're talking about championships, Six Nations, Grand Slams, World Cups, then we've done nothing really.
"You can't compare it to teams that have won before. That's the key to being a good team, winning trophies, and we haven't done it yet. We're building hopefully towards that."
Asked what the performance said about this Ireland team, head coach Farrell replied: "A lot - that we’ve got resilience, guts, character.
"We wanted the test, we wanted the different type of Test match that was a proper old-fashioned slinging match.
"We wanted to see where we are at in that regard. I thought the character of the side was immense for all sorts of reasons.
“You start coming into camp and a lot of them are underdone as far as minutes are concerned and this being our first game of the season – it’s some of the lads’ first game of the season and others haven’t played for three or four weeks.
"They come into camp every single time and get to work and they certainly fill me with confidence every time. I thought we showed fantastic spirit."
Farrell acknowledged that the result could have gone the other way and the Boks had a bad day off the tee with numerous chances for points wasted.
But he added: "The confidence we got as a forward pack from our maul defence stood to us for the game and our setpiece was unbelievable.
"Coming out of that, our defence was immense. The backs complemented the forwards in that as well.
“It was a proper Test match either way. If the result had gone against us, I would have felt the same way.”
Springboks head coach Jacques Nienaber said that the Boks had learned a lot about Ireland ahead of their World Cup finals meeting next September.
And he insisted this game will have no bearing on what's to come at France 2023.
“No, I don’t think so," said the ex-Munster defence coach. "I think you learn a lot.
"It’s good preparation and obviously it builds momentum or doesn’t build momentum.
"I think Ireland will go into the next games with a lot of momentum but I think in 2018 we lost 50% of our games and you still win a World Cup.
“So you win your first pool match, history would say you can’t win a World Cup if you lose your first pool match. If you lose your first British & Irish Lions game, history has shown you can’t win a series then but I think it’s a myth.
“But obviously it builds confidence, it builds momentum and it creates opportunity to maybe be creative in terms of development and team selection – if you build momentum.
"So that’s the bad thing (for us), it takes that away and you’ve got to build again and get that back in winning ways to try and build momentum again.”
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