The one big downer about being assistant coach for the Lions - a prestigious appointment by anyone's reckoning - is showing up for your first day and finding out that there are three others.
But the meticulous planning of coach Sir Clive Woodward means that they will all have duties coming out of their ears.
At a press conference in Auckland earlier this week, Woodward expressed surprise at media criticism of having so many support staff (official numbers seem to vary from 26 to 30).
He is adamant he needs that many staff to be successful on this tour. "I spoke to other coaches around the world and they agreed."
Woodward said one of the assistants, Ian McGeechan, will coach the midweek Lions team.
This effectively means McGeechan is the science teacher who gets the high school second XV and doesn't have any input in the first XV. And why should he?
He's Scottish.
Seriously, however, McGeechan has coached the Lions to two winning tours - 1989 in Australia and 1997 in South Africa. Many believe he should have won here in 1993 when the Lions were robbed by Grant Fox in the first test.
The other three assistants - England's Andy Robinson, Ireland's Eddie O'Sullivan and Gareth Jenkins of Wales - appear to have a floating role, though it is hard to imagine Robinson working with anyone but the forwards and being Clive's right- hand man.
And yet Woodward would know putting the Celts on the left hand only is a bad idea.
So watch out for O'Sullivan to be thrown a cone or two at first-team training.
Nevertheless, Sir Clive was stumped by the question posed to him by the Herald on Sunday after Wednesday's press conference where he appeared to have an answer for everything.
"Given that the first runner-up in the Miss Universe pageant wears the crown if anything happens to the actual winner, who would take over if anything was to happen to you, such as giardia?"
"I wouldn't have a clue," he said. "It would be up to the Lions board."
But even with an Ebola outbreak in the camp, chances are one coach will be left standing. Safety in numbers.
-HERALD ON SUNDAY
Insisting on four assistants could create team distance
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