Resounding autumn victories over South Africa and Australia, combined with a settled side and lack of injuries, have seen the Irish installed as favourites for the RBS 6 Nations.

But ODriscoll has declared the time for talking is over, with Sundays championship opener against Wales at the Millennium Stadium looming large.

Winning the Grand Slam would be a dream come true, said the Leinster centre, who will win his 71st cap on Sunday.

But, while its all very well saying these things before the tournament, the only thing were concentrating on at this stage is the Six Nations.

Talk is cheap - now we have to do the business on the park. Yes, we are favourites for the Six Nations but we wont be changing anything because of it.

Perhaps well now be given more respect from teams. Weve got to play with that confidence and element of arrogance that is expected of you when you have put in some good performances.

We will try and do that on the pitch but we wont really change a great deal. We must keep level-headed right throughout the tournament.

Ireland announced themselves as the best team in the northern hemisphere by demolishing the Springboks and Wallabies in stunning fashion at Lansdowne Road last November.

The Tri-Nations giants were comprehensively beaten in consecutive Tests but, worryingly for Irelands Six Nations rivals, ODriscoll believes the performances were far from perfect.

It will be a great disappointment if we dont improve on the autumn, he said.

People were patting us on the back, saying how wonderfully we played. But, when you analyse the games, we still made a huge amount of errors and spurned a lot of scoring opportunities.

We have plenty to improve on. We need to realise that and not think were are the finished article.

I dont think anyone did but sometimes you need a reality check and [head coach] Eddie OSullivan gave us that last week when he started going through the videos and showing where we can make some big improvements.

A team doesnt stay the same - they get better or they get worse. I hope we are going to get better.