The irony was lost on nobody yesterday as the Paul O'Connell sat down for a Test week media session in a large exam hall.
The Irish squad have been hosted at St Peter's College in Sandton, just north of Johannesburg, since they arrived in South Africa last week, and their first big press conference of the week came in the school gymnasium, which is already laid out in anticipation of next week's exams.
The sight of hundreds of school desks and chairs laid out single file on a basketball court was actually quite triggering, an instant dose of exam anxiety for anyone who stepped into the room. It was also a less than subtle reminder about the test facing Ireland in Pretoria this Saturday.
O'Connell seemed more tense than usual when he sat down to speak to the media, straight off the training pitch. The forwards coach is probably the best of the Irish coaches when on top-table duties, and rarely skips on the detail when answering a question, but his first couple of answers were noticeably abrupt. He warmed up as he got into the weeds of the challenge facing Ireland this Saturday.
There's a similar feeling around this Ireland team to their Six Nations opener against France in January, when there were real fears of a post-World Cup and post-Johnny Sexton hangover. In the end, they surprised everyone and blew the French apart in Marseille.
The final weeks of the season have clouded Ireland's preparations for this series, with Leinster's Champions Cup final defeat followed by a semi-final URC exit, while Munster similarly lost in the last four.
And O'Connell laughed to himself when asked if he felt Ireland were ready to hit the ground running in Pretoria just as they did in Marseille.
"I find my sense for that is off," he said. "When I think it's bad it’s good, when I think it’s good it’s bad.
"You’ve just got to keep doing the job as well as you can. Keep chatting to the coaches, the players about when you need to step in or step back.
"I like the way the players prepare at the moment, we've continuity in what we do and they figure things out themselves.
"They’re never overly coach-led these guys, they figure things out themselves. Sometimes the feeling you might have as a coach is irrelevant, they might be figuring it out."
While South Africa are the world champions, there's still a sense that Ireland have a target on their backs heading to Loftus Versfeld on Saturday, with several of the South African squad referencing how they've lost each of their last three meetings.
Yesterday, Springboks' head coach Rassie Erasmus continued to stir the pot as he talked up the rivalry between the sides, and O'Connell says the former Munster boss and his players have earned the right to do so.
"I haven't found it unusual, if we won the World Cup we probably would have been asked to go on a few podcasts as well. No one wants us to go on it!
"It is what it is. I come across bits and pieces of it. We haven't spoke about it a lot. We never tend to do around this kind of thing. It tends to become a reaction.
"If you are a head coach as long as Rassie is you have to figure out a way to enjoy doing the media stuff. He seems to enjoy it and he’s good at it. We haven’t paid a lot of attention to it," he added.
While the line-ups on Saturday will be quite similar to the last time they met in September, the backroom team in South Africa has changed considerably, with O'Connell's former teammate Jerry Flannery and ex-Japan coach Tony Brown added to the ticket.
"He'll love the opportunity to work with the Springboks and to work with Rassie again," O'Connell said of Flannery's new job.
"To work with quality players to are unbelievably eager, that want to make it work and want to make your plan work.
"I would say it doesn't matter where he works, he'd love coaching and love bringing an energy and enthusiasm to how team defends and how a team plays the game.
"I haven't seen him coaching a lot, I'm sure he's a great coach, but I'm sure the energy he brings to it would be half the job done, and the integrity and honesty of effort he'd bring to it.
"He's a brilliant guy and it comes through in his coaching and he'll be a brilliant addition to South Africa."
It's expected that Flannery (above) will bring an extra Irish insight to the Springbok camp, but Ireland have similarly been able to tap into the South African mindset, with many of the squad now working under Erasmus' former right-hand man Jacques Nienaber at Leinster.
And O'Connell says while Nienaber isn't involved with the Irish squad directly, they can definitely pick up some residual intelligence.
"I think it helps our players because one of the things I notice for us is the better the coaching in the provinces, the better they're coming into us.
"They [Leinster] added another layer to how they defend and think about the game in the last year with Jacques. That’s been a brilliant addition to them.
"He’s been very forthcoming to them with information, he’s all in with them. It’s brilliant. He’s been very forthcoming about what they did and how they did it and our boys share a little bit of that with us.
"Some of it is helpful to us, some of it can be a distraction because we’ve got to focus on what’s important to us.
"I remember back in the day we used to focus an awful lot on the opposition teams, it can be a distraction. You’ve got to get what you’re doing right, we’ve been good at that in recent years and it’s important we continue with that," he added.
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