Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse for the Crusaders, the defending champions proceeded to take their abysmal season to new depths against the Force in the worst of a series of poor performances in 2024.
In the battle of the cellar-dwellars, the Force and their ragtag assemblage of journeymen were too strong for the Crusaders, who galvanised their newfound reputation as one Super Rugby Pacific's easybeats with a display bereft of quality rugby.
The southerners continually coughed up possession, hamstrung themselves with penalties, and offered little more than a predictable, mono-dimensional offence the Force had little trouble containing.
It continued Rob Penney's miserable debut tenure as head coach, which he conceded had plummeted to a new low in Perth - although he remains upbeat.
"The performance was probably as bad as we've had," said Penney.
"The discipline and the errors are two things that we should be able to control. The staff are working really, really well.
"There's a lot of good stuff happening in behind the scenes, and I know it doesn't always appear that way when, we've had such a topsy turvy sort of performance and outcome.
"But there's probably three of those games on reflection and possibly four that we could easily have won.
"Yes, we're one and seven. But it could have been slightly different. It's not. It's the reality."
Penney admits the burden of their woeful on-field efforts are starting to take their toll on the players, many of whom are inexperienced at this level due to the host of injury issues his squad is dealing with.
"The suggestion you're making around the pressure and confidence and all that, it obviously is affecting, I would suggest, some of our players in a negative way, which isn't good.
"The boys are trying. Yes, potentially, those sorts of external elements create pressure moments inside young mens' heads and I suspect there's a bit of that."
The results sees the Crusaders drop to the bottom of the ladder and five points shy of the final playoffs spot, with just a solitary win to their name in eight matches to date.
They finished Saturday's contest with a staggering 16 penalties conceded and 20 errors made, which Penney says prevented them ever genuinely entering the contest.
"We weren't good enough," he added. "We would ourselves in positions to be threatening and either give a penalty away or make an error.
"Just far too many of those controllables that we weren't able to control and we just keep releasing pressure."
With some help on the horizon in the near-fit Scott Barrett and David Havili, the Crusaders have six games remaining to try and resurrect some life from their campaign, starting against the Rebels in Christchurch on Friday.
