The Penrith Panthers have lost yet another NRL game, with the first half of the season lurching from disaster to disaster for the four-time reigning premiers.
This time it was a 25 points to 6 loss against the Newcastle Knights in Bathurst.
This, the same Newcastle Knights team that has scored just 12.8 points per game across their first ten appearances of the year, with Adam O'Brien seemingly hanging by a thread.
The win will likely grant the under pressure coach a stay of execution, and plenty of decisions to make after Fletcher Sharpe excelled at fullback in place of Kalyn Ponga, who was away on State of Origin duty.
The Panthers always have a rough go of it through the Origin period, and that hasn't changed this year despite their struggles.
Nathan Cleary, Isaah Yeo, Liam Martin, Brian To'o and Dylan Edwards all managed to gain selection despite the club's horror start to the season, but that wasn't an excuse on Saturday night in Bathurst, with the Panthers defensively very poor against a Knights team who were also down on talent through injuries.
It was a point O'Brien explained post-game - that he didn't want to read about how short on talent the Panthers were.
Regardless, Penrith's issues in defence can't be put down to the enormous toll of players they were missing, because it has been a trend all season.
After building their four premierships on defence, the Panthers have conceded more than 22 points per game this year, and haven't backed it up with their attack either, where they only hold a better attacking record than the Knights, Titans, Eels, Tigers, Cowboys and Dragons.
That is not exactly a list of world beating teams in contention for the premiership.
Coach Ivan Cleary said he was disappointed with the way his side started the game against Newcastle.
"Just super disappointed with the start. We just were overrun at the start of the game, a game like this when we are down on troops," Cleary said during his post-game press conference.
"That's the worst start we could find so confidence was down early and it became a pretty tough night.
"The first two tries, there was a six again and there was a penalty so it was a lot of tackles in a row. But at the start of the game I feel like we can definitely do better than that.
"So all of a sudden you are down troops and you are down on the scoreboard, down on possession and down on everything. It makes it a really difficult game from there.
"I was happy with the way they got in there and fought back, showed a bit of metal in the second half there."
The Panthers aren't going to be able to lose many more games though, and that includes during the tough Origin period to come.
It appears that their pre-season departures of Jarome Luai, and maybe more importantly, James Fisher-Harris, combined with all the other departures in earlier seasons, and the fact they have played four straight years of finals, has finally caught up with them.
Ivan Cleary admitted earlier in the year that their depth options were younger and less experienced this campaign, and that is the way it's playing out.
Those players, hard as they might be trying, are simply not up to the mark yet, and it has created a shockingly disappointing campaign for the Panthers, who, even though they were expected to slip, were still picked to be well and truly inside the top eight by the majority of fans and pundits.
After 12 rounds, the Panthers have had just three wins and a draw from their 11 games, to go with a bye for a total of 9 competition points.
As it stands, the mark to make the finals is usually 12 games if your for and against is good, and 13 otherwise.
13 is the mark every team wants to aim at, but the draw may be good enough for the Panthers to qualify off 12 wins, and that's something they will have to likely sweat on.
With just 13 games remaining, the Panthers to get to 12 wins need to win another nine matches.
That leaves room for just four losses between now and the end of the season, but they'll clash with a rapidly improving Eels outfit five days after Game 1, play in Auckland against the high-flying Warriors without their Origin players after Game 2, and clash with the Eels again after Game 3.
Even if they manage to come through the Origin period unscathed, the four-time defending premiers will be forced to play the Melbourne Storm, Canberra Raiders and Canterbury Bulldogs in consecutive weeks between Round 24 and 26. The way they have been playing, they are next to no chance of winning all of those games, albeit it's impossible to write off a team with as much talent as Penrith have.
Maybe Cleary said it best after the Knights game.
Potential is one thing, but you simply can't rely on it for ever.
"Win games. It's not where you want to be, but it's like what is more important at the moment is how far you are away from everyone else," Cleary said.
"Not just on the ladder but in terms of playing potential. I think we have shown this year... we have the potential to be doing much better.
"But you can only rely on potential for so long. A lot of things didn't go our way tonight, but no matter who we had tonight we can do better than what we showed in that first half."
And the time to rely on potential is about to finish. Penrith are going into must-win situations nearly every week from here on out.
This will be the truest test of the four-time premiers we have seen, and they could be the first team out of finals contention in a month if they can't answer the calling card.
