NSW Waratahs coach Michael Cheika knows it's a 'new adventure' this time around as he restarts life at Daceyville.
Cheika faced the media as head coach for the first time, alongside assistants Stephen Hoiles and Wycliff Palu, after leaving Lebanon following the Rugby League World Cup.
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The former Wallabies boss is the last to bring success to the club, hoisting the Super Rugby premiership in 2014 alongside his two former players.
Cheika returns to Rugby Union after a stint with the Sydney Roosters, knowing he must take a different approach to get the best out of a youthful Waratahs squad.
"It's 10 years later, so there's a different way of what they've had applied to them, how they've been brought up and coached maybe differently, so I want to show them something new and maybe a different way altogether," he said.
"There'll be some things I'm going to do this year that I haven't even done before so I want to do things differently because I want to get a different outcome.
"I think that this is a very new adventure. I'm not going back to the 2014 or '15 playbook and trying to reinvent that at all. From a point of view of who the club is, I can definitely look back to that. We had a very strong identity back then and then as far as footy's concerned, I want to create a completely new picture."
Cheika reiterated multiple times that the intention was never to return to the Waratahs, eventually getting the call from RA CEO Phil Waugh to replace Dan McKellar.
However, he believes 2027 is the right time for both club and Cheika for the pair to reunite, bringing him back in sky blue for the first time in 12 years.
"I wouldn't be the type of person who was going to be persuaded. I haven't really had contact with many people, if anyone, from Australia in rugby since the World Cup in '19, and I thought that when Phil contacted me, he handled that situation very well, very straight up and down, very direct with how that went down, and I appreciated that," Cheika explained.
"I had to decide in my own head that I could do what was necessary to make the team go well. It's not about me, it's about the team.
"Teams need a certain type of coach at a certain time and that fluctuates. You may not be the right guy for that team at that time, and I had to feel like I would be the right guy for this team at this time, and then answer in my own head, 'Okay, this is what I think would need to get done, can I do that?'
"I answered to myself yes, obviously, so then it becomes a really exciting opportunity...I didn't really need to be persuaded; I had to answer my own questions about whether I could get the team to where we want it to be."
