Johnny Sexton says that captaining Ireland to only a fourth ever Grand Slam on Saturday is "the stuff of dreams".
Ireland are one step away from making history after beating Scotland at Murrayfield yesterday - and with England standing in their way at the Aviva Stadium
"It would be the stuff of dreams, really," said Sexton. "It's what you grow up wanting to do."
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"I don’t know why you grow up wanting be the captain of Ireland, maybe because the players you admire the most were captains but to do it would be dream come true stuff.
"It’s a great group of lads so to lead them is very special. So who wouldn’t be proud? Even just playing for Ireland to win a Grand Slam would be something.
“It’s going to be a big week, there’s going to be plenty of hype, there’s going to be lots of distractions, tickets and family and all that and we need to really get down to business and get a big performance because these guys are going to be really tough to play against."
England were hammered by France in a record Twickenham defeat on Saturday but Sexton is expecting a reaction from Steve Borthwick's side.
"They’re going to be hurting, they’re going to be wanting to show what playing for England means to them and they’re a good team, a better team than they showed," said the out-half.
"So it’s going to be a really tough game. Look, it's obviously dangerous because they have nothing to play for."
"But it will mean a hell of a lot to us to play at home to try and win something at home. The times that we have won things they've all been away from home. "
"So you know, it was something that we acknowledged from the start that doesn't come around too often. So it will hopefully be a special day where we gotta go and make it happen."
"We have got to prepare well, and we have got to have a big performance.
"We're not going to go out and play badly and win. We need to go and play well."
Ireland, however, showed again that they can cope with whatever is thrown at them after losing three top forwards after 24 minutes in Edinburgh, and had flanker Josh van der Flier as a makeshift lineout thrower in the second half.
Sexton says that it wasn't a case of adversity fuelling a performance that saw Ireland fall just short of a fourth bonus point win in a row.
"When you've got coaches like Andy (Farrell) and Paulie (O'Connell) talking to you all week, you can't but be motivated," he stressed.
"We know what we want to achieve in this competition and we just had to dig in. And we spoke about it last night, that there'd be times we'd have to dig in.
"We did, there was plenty that went wrong and they threw everything at us. In fairness, they're a good side, big, strong, quick; they throw the ball around.
"They made life really tough for us, but we got hold of it and had a good second-half performance."
Sexton added: "It’s driven by Andy since he’s come in. We want to be a tougher team, tougher to go through things like that.
"Even in New Zealand when we were there and we had Covid in the camp, we had front-rowers going down all over the shop and we managed to put in some performances there.
“So we’ve built it over the last three years and it’s nice for it to come to fruition today.
"So look, a very special day but ultimately it’s a semi-final and the big one is next week.”
"For so long, you play in a lot of finals, you win some you lose some, with different groups."
"We played a final in New Zealand, we played a final last year in terms of trying to win a Triple Crown against Scotland, we’ve created finals for ourselves over the last number of years so it will be no different.
"We are used to playing in them. Performance is key, getting it out there and playing really good is the biggest challenge. I think we showed today and throughout the last year that we can perform when the pressure comes on.
"It’s going to be a tough game and we just need to get everyone back fresh, we won’t train too much this week, I think, and get the boys back fresh for Saturday."
With a penalty and two conversions against the Scots, Sexton joined Ronan O'Gara as the all-time Six Nations top points scorer with 557 points.
"Yeah, ROG will be trying to pay me off to retire now," joked the 37-year-old.
"It’s obviously a nice thing, hopefully I can get back on the pitch next week and like I said, it’s all about winning. These other things come along but they are not at the forefront of my mind."
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