So here we are. After three years of trying to move on from Warren Gatland under Wayne Pivac, we're back with the man who led Wales between 2008 and 2019.
Some 1,130 days since declaring it would break his heart if Wales ever returned to the doldrums, he's now here again to try to rescue them from the current depths. Comforting? Exciting? Underwhelming? How he goes about turning Wales around will be, if nothing else, fascinating.
He returns, of course, without trusted lieutenant Shaun Edwards, who will now be a rival of Gatland's as he continues to make France a menacing force ahead of their home World Cup next year. At some point, Edwards might coach Wales, but it won't be for a while.
Read more : Warren Gatland completes stunning return to Welsh rugby
There's no word on the rest of his coaching ticket at this stage, although another of his former charges, Rob Howley, has been mentioned as an option. Sorting out what he does with his coaching group will be one of the first steps, with it unclear whether Pivac's assistants will stay or go.
Neil Jenkins was a constant under Gatland so it's almost certain he'll stay. Little more needs to be said there.
Gethin Jenkins and Stephen Jones both played under Gatland, so there's familiar ground. Jenkins is trying to do with the Welsh defence what Edwards did, so working under Gatland could be mutually beneficial.
As for Jones, his stock isn't too high at the minute, given how closely associated he is with Pivac. The attacking game was meant to be the biggest selling point of the Pivac era, but it's been underwhelming at best.
Jones bears the brunt of that responsibility along with Pivac, but he worked with Gatland at the 2019 World Cup. If Gatland thinks he can deliver concise messages and minor nuances to a relatively simplistic gameplan, then it could work out cheaper than buying Jones and Howley out of their respective contracts.
Then there's Jonathan Humphreys as forwards coach. This is the one that is hardest to predict, given there's no previous working relationship between the pair. Humphreys' future will likely be determined on conversations Gatland has with senior players - although his previous forwards coach, Robin McBryde, is tied up with Leinster.
Whoever he gets to fill his ticket will be crucial in getting Wales up to speed in a short space of time. Right now, they are miles behind the likes of Ireland and France.
Once he's sorted that out, the real work will begin. He takes over a side that has struggled to really define a playing style over the course of three years.
Some of Pivac's best performances all followed a similar trend: 60 minutes of good attacking rugby, a few yellow cards and a late implosion. Paris 2021, Pretoria 2022 and then Cardiff 2022 for Pivac's final game in charge against Australia.
As for his best victories, many were built upon the pragmatic ethos that Gatland had installed. Expect the three-time Lions head coach to lean back into those heavily.
A current international recently told WalesOnline that this Wales team doesn't appear to know what its DNA is. They added it didn't look like the players were trusting their instincts either. Gatland will strip back the message to make all that abundantly clear.
Time is short before the Six Nations and, crucially, the World Cup. When Pivac came in, he had time to experiment - with his first Six Nations seeing all facets of the game attempting to evolve and expand upon Gatland's blueprints.
Over time, that was dialled back - with Byron Hayward's high-risk defensive system based on split-second decision-making by players scrapped in favour of something more akin to Edwards' simpler, more organised scheme. That helped a little, while Wales started to look more pragmatic at times with ball in hand, but the want to be a multi-threat attack still remained - even when it showed no signs of igniting.
Wales' biggest issue over the course of three years has been dealing with ruck speed and ball retention. It's little wonder their attack looked so toothless when, more often than not, they were playing off slow ball because they'd either lost the collision or barely secured possession.
You can get around those issues with sharp ball-handling and offloading, but it requires a level of accuracy and skill which is hard to maintain. Gatland will more than likely go back to a simplistic gameplan.
As Sam Warburton said in his Times column this week, that plan consists of "physical dominance, middle third of the field game management, kick chase and relentless line speed in defence, as well as ferocious breakdown competition". Gatland's Wales won't be caught playing aimlessly in the middle of the field, as Pivac's side has tended to do.
He'll lean on the traits that have remained, more or less, since he left. Wales will be dogged under him. Rarely do this side know when they're beaten. He'll have smart ways of getting around Wales' inability to win collisions consistently. During the run of wins that took Wales to number one in the world back in 2019, Gatland's Wales used tight pick-and-goes to disable opponents' line speed, with victories over England and Scotland built upon long attacking sets of incremental gains.
Wales under Pivac, in their desire to stretch teams from one touchline to the other, rarely threatened the fringes. At points, they became so predictable in what they were doing that teams, like the All Blacks, were genuinely surprised when they attacked around the ruck.
And not surprised in the way a batsman is when he's had five balls pitched short and then gets faced with a yorker to end the over. But surprised in the sense that the All Blacks genuinely didn't expect Nick Tompkins to take it upon himself to cut back and head towards the scene of the tackle.
Over the course of the autumn, Wales got better in this regard, with Wales looking to short options off 9 more and placing more pressure on the edges of rucks with snipes like this from Tomos Williams so defences couldn't fly up.
All too often though, Wales have played almost exclusively off 10, but that's likely to change with Gatland in charge. Will we see a full-blown return of 'Warrenball'? It depends what you define Warrenball as, but you can expect Wales to play the percentages and look to strike in rare moments of redzone pressure with some strike moves - basically what most teams do in Test rugby.
Of course, while WRU CEO Steve Phillips says Gatland will "undoubtedly be able to make an immediate impact", there's no guarantee things will work out. Since leaving the Wales post, he lost nine on the bounce as Chiefs coach, lost the Lions series in South Africa and was derided for negative tactics and was then moved upstairs by the Chiefs on his return.
He arrives with a lot of credit in the bank, but there are cracks in Welsh rugby which even he might not be able to cover. Maybe, just maybe, we're where we are because of the collective failings of Welsh rugby rather than just Gatland's once-successor-now-predecessor.
The other big job on Gatland's hands is instilling confidence in the playing group. In theory, that shouldn't be an issue.
Gatland was respected by the players and has been noted by current members as being a good man-manager. He should be familiar with almost all of the players in the Welsh pool at this moment in time.
For some out of the picture at the minute, like Ross Moriarty, James Botham, Thomas Young and Shane Lewis-Hughes, it could even be a positive to have a fresh face in charge. All the above will help with winning collisions, as might shifting Christ Tshiunza to lock given the current imbalance of second-rows and back-rows.
But there's a catch. As things stand, a lot of players in Wales don't know if they'll be offered a contract for next year, with the game in a state of financial paralysis. For many, that means mortgages and livelihoods on the line in a state of sorry uncertainty.
Perhaps what you don't want then, as players, is the body that has yet to finalise a funding model that would provide you with a modicum of security opting to go ahead with getting rid of the incumbent coach and replacing him with another who wouldn't come cheap - especially as it's potentially a five-year deal.
The fact that there are current internationals who don't know what their future holds in six months, while Gatland currently has his plans mapped out until 2027 might be viewed by some as a little galling, to say the least. Would players aim their frustrations at Gatland? Probably not.
But if someone on a five-year deal is asking you to fly head first into a ruck when your future isn't certain beyond the summer, you might just think twice. Might. Granted, there's now a verbal agreement in place for a six-year funding plan, but until that's in ink, it might not mean too much to the players just yet.
Gatland may or may not have some involvement in an overarching role looking to the future, while a root-and-branch review of the professional game is reportedly something he's insisted on. While a review of the game as a whole is needed in Wales, some might question how much Gatland did for the professional sides during his reign and whether he's the right person to be leading that crusade.
That could be one piece of work on his in-tray that might be better served being whisked away by a WRU employee. For now, his work will be focused on the 10 months in front of him. The message will be simple - be harder to beat.
Whether that's enough in the current state of Welsh rugby remains to be seen.
READ NEXT:
Warren Gatland in classy gesture to Wayne Pivac at start of his first press conference
Everything we know about Warren Gatland's stunning return and the big money deal that got him
WRU and four regions verbally agree new six-year financial deal for Welsh rugby
Tonight's rugby news as Ospreys chief quits Welsh rugby amid crazy day of change
