Over the course of the last two years, Ireland have often found themselves backed into a corner.
Some of that has been by design. The extra tour games they arranged last summer in New Zealand were a test of the squad's durability, while the Ireland A fixture against an All Blacks XV on the eve of their meeting with the Springboks in November was specifically to see how the coaches could manage when stretched to their limits.
Rugby being rugby, the game has presented plenty of obstacles, most of which the players have been able to navigate in the moment. Jack Crowley was thrown in at the deep end for his first start against Australia last winter, the Six Nations gave Ireland a slew of last-minute injuries to deal with, a Covid-19 outbreak threatened to ruin the tour of New Zealand, and the win away to Scotland saw Cian Healy packing down at hooker, with Josh van der Flier throwing into the lineout.
When it's been sink or swim, Ireland have consistently swam.
"The key learnings are the scenarios that we've tried to put ourselves through in the last few years," Andy Farrell said at last week's squad announcement.
The Ireland head coach has greeted every one of these inconveniences warmly, treating them as character-building exercises rather than reasons to fail, best met with a cool head and a dry pants.
The latest of those obstacles sees their most experienced player ruled out of the World Cup, with Healy's agonising calf injury seeing the 125-cap loosehead miss out on the tournament, replaced by Jeremy Loughman.
"You hear me constantly say 'best laid plans' and all that, it's 100% that at a World Cup.
"And the ones that get flustered with all that, because they're not ready for all different types of permutations, are the ones that lose the plot.
"The key to progressing in a competition like this is staying calm, keeping your feet under you and making sure that you just roll with the punches and be the best version of yourself no matter what happens and have no excuse mentality.
"We've tried to put ourselves in those type of positions before and we know what's coming through."
The World Cup will be the culmination of four years work for Farrell (above) and his staff, with his squad having changed significantly since he was an assistant to Joe Schmidt in 2019.
The spine is still there; Johnny Sexton, Peter O'Mahony, James Ryan and Tadhg Furlong to name a few, but a look around some of the other frontline stars shows just how much has changed in four years.
In early 2020, few would have predicted Hugo Keenan being the nailed-on full-back for Ireland at the 2023 Rugby World Cup, while we hadn't even heard of Mack Hansen.
Farrell's opening game in charge against Scotland saw Caelan Doris make his Test debut, Andrew Porter was still Furlong's tighthead understudy, while Josh van der Flier was yet to consistently nail down his place in the starting team, nevermind produce World Player of the Year form..
"You know, we probably didn't know the total plan," Farrell added, when asked to reflect on how the squad has changed over the years.
"You have to roll with the punches in that regard, don't you?
"At the same time, I think the process has always been for the here and now and the medium term and the long term. You know, a lot [of teams] tend to go from cycle to cycle and chop a few and carry on.
"I think the right way for me anyway is to grow and develop competition as we go, and then when we get to something like this, watch and learn."
Farrell and his players haven't shied away from their World Cup ambitions, with the next eight weeks set to outweigh the previous three and half years.
The lopsided nature of the pool stage draw has many people already fearing that arguably Ireland's best ever team could once again fall at the quarter-final hurdle.
And the Ireland coach believes the tournament is wide open.
"Everyone wants it to be like that because there's so many good teams that can compete with each other on any given day.
"And the pressures of the competition within itself, the history of all that shows that it is going to be a wide open competition anyway, you know.
"So one step at a time. Let's see if we can build some momentum."
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