Rocky Elsom's latest challenge in a stellar career is doubtless his toughest to date: leading the Australian team out of a miserable year.
It's not started well. On Saturday in Tokyo, Elsom had to explain how it had come to pass that New Zealand had completed a 4-0 rout of Australia in this year's Bledisloe Cup, in a year when the Wallabies were thought to be cutting loose.
Elsom's demeanour said it all - it usually does. His head was in his hands, his gaze fixed ahead at an indeterminate focal point nowhee near the visiting hacks whose interogation was as brutal as it was thorough. The pain was there. It has not yet disappeared as Australia square up to England in the first match of a Grand Slam tour.
"The big thing about that game was that we lost, and I don't feel too comfortable about that," Elsom said to Rugby Heaven.
"And the big thing about losing to New Zealand was that we didn't feel that they were 4-0 better than us. But that's how it is.
"Heading into that game, there was probably some anxiety about the fact that we hadn't been able to notch one up against them. But we also knew we had been a big part of that because we had not been able to execute the way we wanted to ... and that probably happened again [in Tokyo].
"Sometimes you play teams that you feel like they are a much better side, or a much more complete side. We don't necessarily feel that way about New Zealand, but we haven't been able to knock them off."
Despite the promise shown by some peripheral players in the drubbing of what was a largely second-string Gloucester on Tuesday, the squad will be staring into an abyss if they lose to England on Saturday.
Elsom will have reached a low point early in his tenure as well. The All Blacks are the All Blacks, but defeat to an England side shorn of pretty much an entire first XV of regulars would be a catastrophe.
"This Test is pretty big for us," Elsom said.
"We were absolutely stinging for a win last week, and it didn't come for us. England are also in a similar situation where they want wins just as much as we do ... I certainly wouldn't like the idea of us losing on the weekend."
Neither would any Australian.
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