Wellington Phoenix have had to put a series of setbacks behind them, as they prepare for a benchmark game in the Women's A-League against three-time champions Melbourne Victory.
A promising start to their third season in the Australian competition sees them sitting in third on the table, two points ahead of their rivals, after four wins from six games.
The warm and fuzzy embrace of that success has turned decidedly chilly in recent days, with a season-ending knee injury to defender Marisa van der Meer, and the shock departure of vice-captain Chloe Knott on financial grounds and "differing values".
With Football Ferns international Grace Wisnewski already sidelined by the same anterior cruciate ligament complaint as van der Meer, the club has had to take a good hard look at itself in the mirror to determine where the blame for these issues lies, if anywhere.
"When you lose three players like we have, all in and around that starting XI, that’s going to take a hit on anybody and we're all feeling it," said first-year coach Paul Temple.
"It's been a really tough week, we're not going to hide that. It's definitely one of the toughest challenges that we've experienced.
"As a team, you get these setbacks throughout the season and this one has come at us off the pitch, rather than resultswise. It's been tough, there's been a lot of soulsearching and there's been a few sleepless nights.
"Football doesn't wait for anyone, so you've got to keep going and you've got to keep moving, and we're still trying to focus on this game on Sunday."
Last seen, the Phoenix women were celebrating their latest win against then-tabletoppers Perth Glory, part of an Auckland doubleheader that saw their men also victorious over Melbourne City. Over the intervening two weeks, with several of their stars away on international duty, things have turned slightly sour.
Perhaps the most ringing endorsement of the women's programme has come from Canadian goalkeeper Rylee Foster, who was named A-League Player of the Month for November.
"I've played at the top level, I've played at Liverpool, I've played with Celtic and I’ve experienced some of the top of the top," she said. "The stuff that is going on here is better than what I experienced there.
"There are not many clubs that can compete with the facilities and the staff, and the type of style we are playing."
In his first campaign in charge, Temple was named Coach of the Month, but he will need all his guile to bring together a squad that are suffering, five of them - Mackenzie Barry, Michaela Foster, Kate Taylor, Brianna Edwards and Manaia Elliott - from jetlag, after returning from Colombia with the Football Ferns.
"They've just arrived," said Temple. "We've seen them, they all look tired, as you'd expect.
"We've got 48 hours to see how their recovery goes. We're not going to make any decisions on who starts and who's on the bench until Saturday afternoon.
"We'll give them time to see how they feel tomorrow and then we'll have to make some calls whether we start them, whether we use them off the bench or whether we don't include them. It'll all come down to the individual and how they feel really."
