Robbie Deans started with a memorable victory. Dave Rennie came within two coats of Dulux of ending Australia's winless run across the ditch. If you're an Australian praying for a Bledisloe miracle this Saturday, history offers you the smallest shimmers of hope.
Joe Schmidt will become the third Kiwi to coach the Wallabies in a Bledisloe Cup clash this weekend, with scrum guru and compatriot Mike Cron providing a measure of support alongside him. Given how bad the Australian scrum was in Santa Fe two weeks ago, the former All Blacks set-piece mastermind has likely been hard at work.
Schmidt, too, was involved with the All Blacks just last year, part of Ian Foster's assistant staff that saw their team - which was reduced to 14 men for 51 minutes - come within one point of winning the Rugby World Cup final.
When Wayne Barnes blew his whistle to signal full time at the Stade de France, it marked the end of Foster's career and, while not known at the time, triggered a chain reaction of sorts that would eventually wind up with Schmidt jumping over the Tasman Sea.
Nine months on from when he was unveiled as the Wallabies' third Kiwi coach, Schmidt confronts the All Blacks for the first time.
But where neither Deans nor Rennie had previously been a part of the New Zealand coaching setup - the former Crusaders coach had applied for the role and missed out to Graham Henry after the 2007 World Cup heartbreak - Schmidt was this time last year helping prepare the All Blacks for the third game of their World Cup campaign.
"It'll be a bit awkward, to be honest, I've had a little bit to do with some of those players very recently," he said Thursday, after unveiling his squad for Saturday afternoon's clash.
"Probably not that different to going to the World Cup and coaching against Ireland or even being called in late a couple of years ago for that first Test in Eden Park in that week up against some Irish boys who I'd coached for 10 years. And you build relationships with those people, you have a lot of respect for those people, and it's the same with the All Blacks.
"So yeah it's awkward but you have a loyalty to the group of men you're working with at the time and players understand that of all people because they go up against each other and then form a team in a national sense as opposed to playing Super Rugby against each other."
Schmidt was quickly inserted as Rugby Australia's leading candidate to coach the Wallabies following the Eddie Jones debacle and when Peter Horne was signed as the new director of rugby, the odds the Kiwi would jump ship shortened markedly.
Not that he didn't need some convincing. Eventually, however, the itch to coach and the opportunity to offer some help to a key international union - albeit one of his homeland's leading rivals - was too good to turn down.
Deans and Rennie's motivations - and the environments within which they took charge - were vastly different.
Firstly, neither coach had been given an opportunity at Test level. Secondly, Deans took on the role as Wallabies coach at a time of relative stability, with a key mix of senior players and emerging stars Kurtley Beale, James O'Connor and Quade Cooper all on the horizon.
Rennie, meanwhile, had that whole COVID situation to navigate. But he too had the benefit of having enough senior players around whom he could build a team, a position not really afforded to Schmidt, who has blooded 16 debutants in seven Tests.
While James Slipper will this weekend surpass George Gregan as the most capped Wallaby of all time and Allan Alaalatoa sits alongside him among the replacements, there is a genuine argument as to whether both men, on the basis of their scrummaging this year, deserve to be playing this weekend.
That gives you a sense of the predicament Schmidt is in.
The Kiwi isn't making any promises either. He says he is all about pragmatism and just wants to see improvement in the areas where Australia faded so badly in Santa Fe. For those who weren't watching, those areas are many.
"I think it starts like it does with the set-piece, that's kick-off, scrum and lineout," Schmidt said when asked what the Wallabies simply must get right on Saturday. "I think our scrum has actually been pretty good until last week, we again didn't do what we expected to do in that game in Santa Fe, but our lineout operated well.
"I think you've got to stop their lineout maul, so you've got to make sure you're well prepared for that. I know their counter attacking threat, I've seen it up close, I've even enjoyed it in a past life, but we've got to make sure we close their space down and we don't give them anything that they can sneak through and play in behind, because once they're in behind you they've got a lot of firepower to stay and play on top of you.
"So they'd be some of them. Turnover ball, in their seven games this year, they've got a dozen guys who've poached the ball at the tackle ... what did I leave out?"
And that's exactly why the bookmakers have taken on the Wallabies at the $5.20 quote this Saturday. The money men can't have concerned themselves with the Kiwi-Wallabies-coach-Bledisloe-debut history, nor the new coach bounce that also saw Michael Cheika win his first trans-Tasman Test in 2015.
When Schmidt does depart the Wallabies, whether that is at the end of his contract following next year's British & Irish Lions series, or perhaps further down the track should he continue some muted progress and fancy a crack at the 2027 World Cup, it's unlikely Australia will have another Kiwi coach in the nearer future.
With Dan McKellar back in the frame at the Waratahs, Stephen Larkham building a lengthy resume and Les Kiss lauded for his first season at the Reds, the Australian coaching cupboard is no longer so bare.
Could the reverse happen and an Aussie ever coach the All Blacks? There would be more chance that New Zealand would take an Australian Prime Minister, you'd wager. Maybe they'd like Albo?
Pull off a Bledisloe miracle, however, and Schmidt could have claims to the top Aussie job himself.
Highly unlikely? Yes. But the limited history of Wallaby Kiwi coaching going up against the All Blacks suggests it's a chance. And Australia have little else to cling to right now.