The All Blacks will spend the next seven weeks in each other's pockets, and Dave Rennie could not be happier about it.
New Zealand closed their Nations Championship home block with a 40-21 win over Ireland at Eden Park at the weekend, scoring six tries to three and leading 28-7 at the break. It moved Rennie to 3-0 since taking over, and turned attention immediately to what comes next: an extended tour taking in four matches against South African franchises, three Tests against the world's top-ranked side, and a final fixture in Baltimore on September 12.
Rennie is framing the trip as a development exercise as much as a contest.
"We will come out of Africa, regardless of the results, in a much better place," he said.
"We've got a captured audience for seven weeks. We'll make the most of that."
He is under no illusions about the opposition. South Africa dispatched Wales 43-0 in Durban on the same weekend, having earlier sent what amounted to a second-choice team to beat Scotland at Loftus.
"It's a different beast, South Africa, aren't they? They put a B side out last week that beat an excellent Scotland team," Rennie said.
Attack coach Mike Blair, whose appointment to Rennie's staff raised eyebrows in New Zealand, was blunter about the target. Asked whether the All Blacks could win the series, he did not hedge.
"I believe so. We're also conscious of how impressive South Africa has been in these (Nations Championship) Test matches," Blair said.
Blair's concern is less about ambition than logistics - how to keep a Test side sharp while giving fringe players enough rugby to force their way in.
"Our challenge is how we get the guys rugby, how we get cohesion. You want to keep a test group together, but you want to be able to give guys opportunities to play their way into the Test as well," he said.
He also expects the environment to bite. Three of the four Tests are on South African soil, two of them in Johannesburg.
"It'll be literally us against the rest of South Africa, so we'll have to be tight. There'll be some testing times," Blair said.
"One of Dave's super strengths is pulling people together and we'll definitely need that in South Africa."
A 44-man squad will be named on July 27. Hooker Codie Taylor is a doubt for the opening fortnight after a calf strain against Ireland, with the first two tour matches - against the Stormers on August 8 and the Sharks on August 12 - likely to come too soon.
The Springboks, meanwhile, are reloading rather than resting. Rassie Erasmus confirmed that fly-half Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, who has not played since May 30 and underwent surgery, will travel to Argentina for the August 8 Test in Buenos Aires.
"We've got Sacha coming back now, he will go with the guys to Argentina," Erasmus said.
Handre Pollard's absence against Wales was also explained.
"Handre pulled his hamstring. Handre is fit now, he wasn't fit for this game," Erasmus said.
That shortage forced Erasmus into an unusual call - a debut for 20-year-old Vusi Moyo, who kicked three conversions in 47 minutes against Wales.
"Hell, we have to have another fly-half. We have two guys out and we felt that he was the next guy in," Erasmus said.
"We didn't want to move Damian [Willemse] to 10 or one of the other guys, we wanted to get an U20 fly-half into the mix and see how he does."
For all the satisfaction at Eden Park, Rennie left convinced his side had not yet shown its ceiling.
"We've got a lot more in us. I reckon we can be a lot better," he said. "They're such a good side, Ireland. We asked a lot of questions of them."
