You wonder if Eddie Jones might feel a touch of trepidation, as well as massive excitement, for his first Test back in charge of the Wallabies, against the Springboks in Pretoria, this weekend.
For almost 18 years on from when he was unceremoniously marched from the then Australian Rugby Union headquarters on Sydney's lower north shore, the hopes of Australia's rugby community once again rest on the shoulders of the former Randwick hooker.
And as new Rugby Australia chief executive Phil Waugh said recently, there are few harder places to win than famed cauldron Loftus Versfeld, a venue where the Wallabies hold an 0-7 record.
As fate would have it, Pretoria also is the same city where things really began to fall apart for Jones in 2005. A 22-16 defeat by the Springboks -- a week after they had suffered the same fate in an additional Mandela Plate Test -- would be the first of four in a winless Tri Nations, before Australia could later only manage one solitary win on their four-Test spring tour in November.
A couple of weeks later, Jones was gone.
But perhaps the writing was already on the wall in the lead-up to the defeat in Pretoria.
"We played two games there that year, there was an extra game [in South Africa], we played them in Johannesburg the week before. But I remember that game because that's when all the s--- hit the fan when all the boys went out on the drink during the week and that's when Matty Henjak got sent home... that was in the olden days where there was no social media or camera phones, so players got up to a bit more during the week," former Wallaby Jeremy Paul, who started at hooker in Pretoria in 2005, recalled to ESPN.
It will come as no surprise then that Jones has the Wallabies staying in Johannesburg, rather than Cape Town, this week.
While scrum-half Henjak was sent home in disgrace after admitting he had thrown a drink at a fellow patron in a Cape Town bar, Lote Tuqiri, Wendell Sailor, and Matt Dunning were also all handed $500 fines.
It wasn't exactly the build-up the Wallabies were after as they attempted to rebound from a 33-20 loss the week prior, but winning in South Africa through that period was arguably harder than it is today.
"We were actually in pretty some good form, but it was just that every time we showed up to play South Africa in South Africa; I mean it was an absolute honour and privilege to meet Nelson Mandela, to shake his hand, but it was the worst thing that ever happened to us, they grew an extra arm and a leg every time," Paul continued.
"The following year we beat South Africa 49-0 and then we went to South Africa and we lost. It's just extremely difficult to beat them at home, especially in the early days when Nelson Mandela used to rock up.
"They had Victor Matfield in the lineout, the way he controlled the lineout, he was probably at the peak of his career. I remember getting punched in the face in the game, we dropped the bind and I copped the old-school uppercut underneath... but we were also in a transition period since 2003 and we had some new players coming through, getting ready for the 2007 World Cup. It's a really pivotal time that halfway point to a World Cup, you're trying to blood new players and see where older players are at; can they last to that World Cup?"
Beyond Matfield, the Springboks squad that ran out at Loftus that day was stacked. In Percy Montgomery, Jacque Fourie, Jean de Villiers, Bryan Habana, Bakkies Botha, Joe van Niekerk, Juan Smith and captain John Smit, South Africa had the nucleus of the team that would go on to win a second World Cup two years later.
Not that the Wallabies were short on household names either, with George Gregan, Stephen Larkham, Matt Giteau, Chris Latham, Nathan Sharpe, George Smith, Phil Waugh, Sailor and Tuqiri all joining Paul in the run-on 15.
Despite that quality of personnel, a converted try to Smith and three Giteau penalties, the Wallabies would go down 22-16.
The Cape Town incident was meanwhile the first of the cracks that began to appear within the Wallabies, as Jones came under increasing pressure and calls for a change of coach grew ever louder.
"Any coach under pressure is going to micro-manage, but Eddie just needed a few results," Paul said. "And the players should have taken a lot more responsibility [for the defeats] at that time. But he'd also been there for four years and we hadn't got the success we had wanted.
"But Eddie was also in a jam, because he had come off such huge success [a World Cup final with the Wallabies] and success himself, that demand for results was huge. And that ended up being the straw that broke the camel's back, the results, and then in Europe, it was just indicative of how the whole year went; a poor Tri Nations, we didn't win the Bledisloe Cup back again -- although I don't think anyone thought it would still be lost 20 years later -- but it was just an accumulation of things."
Fast forward 18 years and Jones has coached all over the world since he last rose to his feet to sing Australia's national anthem in Pretoria, developing his coaching acumen and style along the way.
Perhaps most notable is that Jones is far more willing to loosen the coaching reins than he did in his first stint as Wallabies coach, a fact evidenced by his 11-strong assistant group and his willingness to look to other sports for different insights and to fulfil specialist coaching roles.
Still, the buck stops with Jones, and Paul says there is one sure way to impress the Wallabies coach - or to at least avoid invoking his famous wrath.
"Probably the best way to describe Eddie is through his relationships with players. A lot of people look at Wayne Bennett in the NRL, his ability to connect with players and have that father-son relationship, and Eddie was very similar," Paul said of his experiences under Jones.
"I think one of his greatest attributes is how much he cares about the player; he's tough love, he's 100% that old-school tough soul, but looking back at it now I just know he had the best interest for me and not just me, all his players. He got invited to all our weddings, he was a guy that was respected and loved.
"There's a quote from an American women's soccer captain that just explains Eddie to the tee, 'always train like the coach is watching' - and that's Eddie. If you always had that thought to train as if Eddie was watching you would have the best session.
"So I think a coach he's a coach that can instill trust and fear, and when I say fear I mean it in a good way and that it comes with respect, but he made it so you wanted to play for him. You just wanted him to come up to you after a game, win lose or draw, and give you a nod and say 'well done' because if he didn't you thought 's---t'. You just wanted his praise and I think a good coach gets that out of his players.
"And I think Eddie will do that, and he needs to bring that camaraderie and bring that team together as quickly as possible, because you're coming up against sides with cohesion from the past two or three years, if not longer."
While the 2005 Wallabies faced a who's who of Springboks rugby, the 23 that runs out on Saturday night [AEST] will confront a vastly understrength South Africa after 12 frontline players were instead set for the clash with the All Blacks in Auckland next week. Jones, meanwhile, will name his Wallabies squad on Thursday afternoon.
While Paul admits he finds it hard to see the Wallabies bringing home any silverware this year, he still looks upon this Australian group with an optimistic gaze.
"I think when you look at all the different [Super Rugby] sides and plucking the best players [out], we've actually got two players deep in each position. And we've also got some players like Marika Koroibete, Samu Kerevi, Michael Hooper, Rob Valetini, these guys are in the top five in their position around the world," he told ESPN.
"I think we're actually looking not too bad, and that Carter Gordon, wow, he's actually in the mould of Quade Cooper.
"So if you look at any side in transition, as we have been for 15 years, it's that ability to get that seamless transition, or get the best things from that senior player; so someone like Quade in his current space, I think he's matured wonderfully, I think he's going to be an amazing 10 this year. I'm really excited.
"Talking with my head here, I don't think we're going to bring home much silverware this year. But I think if we can be in the fight -- we've watched Bledisloe Cups where it's been done at halftime or we haven't been in contest -- we'll be in the contest, and I think that's what Eddie will bring to the table."