Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt says he has never been as unprepared for a job as he is right now.
Such a forthright statement won't exactly fill anyone across the Australian rugby diaspora with confidence, given the Wallabies are just over a week out from their first Test of the season.
The good news then is that Schmidt, just like his fellow Kiwi Dave Rennie before him, says he is working with a lot of good men, so too a coaching team that has already stepped up to the plate as the Wallabies took their first tentative steps in yet another new era.
"I've never been so unprepared to be here," Schmidt told reporters on Thursday afternoon after four days in camp in Brisbane with his 38-man squad.
"This is the one time I've got to meet all these players, and in those previous roles, I'd had three years with Leinster, and I knew a greater proportion of that squad before the All Blacks, I had the Blues, and so, yeah, it's a little bit daunting, to be honest.
"But if I wasn't nervous, I don't think I'd be on the edge doing my job right. So I'm happy to be nervous because it just encourages me to work a bit harder and engage a bit quicker and a bit more often with the players so that we can try to be on the same page.
"One thing I would say is I've got real confidence in our coaching group. Laurie [Fisher] ran a lot of today's session with the defence, and he's a ball of energy. And he's a catalyst for enthusiastic contribution, and did a really good job with today's session, and around the edges.
"The unit session yesterday, I love the way Mike Cron and Geoff Parling have combined to deliver and demand what they have from the big boys up front, and Eoin Toolan is just chipping away on some of the skill tidy-ups we think that can make a difference for our backs particularly."
Schmidt has a few more days yet before he must settle on a team to face Wales in Sydney and admitted he was likely to need all of them before naming a 23. While suspicions are he will lean heavily on senior Brumbies players both in the forwards and out wide, Schmidt also has 12 uncapped players in his squad, which could result in a handful of Test debuts at Allianz Stadium on Saturday week.
But Schmidt is not in the same situation as he was with Ireland, where he had previously coached Leinster, who for many years have supplied the majority of the national team's squad. He is still in the discovery phase in Australia.
Asked about Eddie Jones' comments from Stan's The Wallabies documentary when the coach declared there was not enough hardness Australian rugby, Schmidt resisted the temptation for a dig at his predecessor.
He did however praise his players for a "growth mindset" and suggested there may be a couple of captains used across the two Tests against Wales, and one-off clash with Georgia, as he plots Australia's recovery from the rock bottom of Jones' second tenure last year.
"We've got a real mix of leaders within the group, and what I have seen has been really encouraging," Schmidt said.
"There [are] guys who've got good experience, there [are] guys who lead by example, and there [are] guys who speak well. So, and I'm just getting to know them. So the complication for me is just, first of all, I think it's easier to select that first captain once you've selected your team to make sure they're a starting player.
"And then from there, I think you gauge how well they go, and we just progressed through this first three-week block. Probably, there'll be a little bit of movement in the side. I'm pretty sure that we'll use more than just 15 of the same starters, so that there could be a different captain for one or two of the Tests.
"And that will also allow us to just experiment a little bit. But you can't experiment too much when you've got a team like Wales coming, because their leadership is strong with guys like Dewi Lake and Aaron Wainwright and Dafydd Jenkins, Cory Hill coming back in there. They've got lots of experience with guys who lead.
"So I think that in itself is a really good challenge for our boys to demonstrate their self-leadership and for the individual leaders to stand up."
The Wallabies will regroup in Sydney on Sunday to continue preparation for the first Test against Wales.