Crusaders coach Rob Penney admits his defending Super Rugby Pacific champions are teetering on the edge of an abyss, but insists he is still the right man to lead them to safety.
After winning a Super Rugby crown in each of the past seven years under now-All Blacks maestro Scott Robertson, the Canterbury-based side are off to the worst start of their history, after falling to a fifth straight loss - and their biggest of the season - against the Blues at Eden Park.
The 26-6 drubbing exposed several shortcomings and added to a mounting casualty list, with acting captain David Havili limping off in the second half, with a calf niggle. Fulltime skipper Scott Barrett has already been ruled out for another month with a finger injury.
The Crusaders had dominated their Auckland rivals for a decade, winning 18 of 19 previous meetings and last losing at the self-proclaimed 'National Stadium' in 2014. That supremacy came crashing down this weekend, leaving the visitors in a precarious position that may become irrecoverable.
"That could easily happen, if they're not well connected, if they group start looking out the window, instead of in the mirror. That's collective, that's all of us.
"It could spiral uncontrollably, but my hope is in the fact the group is well connected and they're proud men. We've got some talent to come back to us after the bye.
"Who knows, if we can secure a position in the top eight, we're in the hunt."
With the Chiefs - who have already beaten them once this season - looming on Friday, Penney knows he faces a daunting task, lifting his team again.
"That will be a challenge," he conceded. "It's getting to a point where that's obviously going to start to affect all sorts of dynamics within a team, when you have results we've been having.
"It's a collective responsibility to ensure we don't fall into a deep hole, and we just keep looking for light at the end of the tunnel and grasp onto it, and just keep fighting."
Perhaps the top priority for Penney is fixing a lineout that lost nine throws to the opposition.
"You can't fix everything," he said. "You've just got to pick the critical few and hopefully they make a big enough impact that we can get a result.
"We thought we had some good lineouts to go to, but they got up in front of us, put us under pressure and we threw them a bit wonky. There are a number of reasons, and we have to be better and better educators.
"It was a combination of things, never just one thing. One percent might have been a little bit of dampness... a combination between having a 22-year-old caller and a 20-year-old front-of-the-lineout guy and 22-year-old thrower.
"We've got to be better at educating them and developing them, but there are some reasons why it imploded."
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