A miserable Otago rugby season - despite Saturday night's win - has come to a close, perhaps the worst for about 30 years in results and public support.
Who would have picked Otago, a Super 14 base, to be unable to beat Tasman, Hawkes Bay, Bay of Plenty and Taranaki? Tenth out of 14 in a competition that recently contained only nine teams is a poor effort.
Sure, Otago was only a handful of points short of fifth - but it was also the same distance from 12th.
A tough season was always likely anyway because of the public's overexposure to top rugby and because the national provincial championship has been downgraded - All Black appearances are now a rarity, scores of the better provincial players have emigrated and the remaining talent is spread thinly.
It is telling that for Otago only captain Craig Newby and lock Tom Donnelly could be counted as experienced hands.
But who would have foreseen so much bumbling and brainless play, except perhaps for the final match when Wellington had little to play for and Otago was already out of the quarter finals.
That win illustrated, once again, the importance of the right mental attitude in sport, an attitude that seemed to be missing for too many games.
The Wellington win was a case of too little too late and cannot hide the reality of the problems facing Otago rugby.
It is bewildering and hugely disappointing to those who lived through the golden age at the end of the 1990s, when Otago played spectacular winning rugby and Carisbrook tickets were prized and, at times, hard to secure.
The advent of professionalism clearly added to the problems for Otago rugby, but many wounds have also been self-inflicted.
The bitter legacy of the Mains-senior players dispute and the hangover from rugby's former arrogance both undermined goodwill and helped create the downward spiral.
The strength of Otago rugby was squandered, Otago's debts ballooned and administrators now face daunting challenges.
With the recent national rugby union gradings across several criteria placing Otago seventh, there is some truth to the argument that it is time Otago supporters' expectations were more realistic. Dunedin, nevertheless, remains a Super 14 base with the drawing power that implies.
And the University of Otago, while far less significant in the professional era, is still a source of talent to bolster club and provincial rugby.
Tenth, and the manner of that 10th, is simply not good enough.
The harsh facts are that current coach Steve Martin - by all accounts keen, likeable and capable - has presided over three years of worsening results.
Under the accountability of professional sport, should he go? Although his line-up of players might not include world beaters, it contained more raw ability than several other teams and should have been capable of more.
Clouds of uncertainty hang over rugby, and changes at national level will obviously impact on Otago.
Perhaps, with the expansion of the Super 14, provincial rugby will be pushed further from the frontline and become merely a semiprofessional feeder competition.
Perhaps, as national chairman Jock Hobbs has suggested, Super 14 franchises will be swapped for provincial "ownership". Otago will have to adapt to whatever emerges, but in the meantime has to face the challenges in front of it.
With the right leadership throughout Otago rugby, a comeback can be sparked, whatever the shape of the competitions.
Those with longer memories remember days when even Lancaster Park could not draw supporters to watch a woeful Canterbury team, and it is not so long ago that North Otago had not won a game in seasons. Otago Cricket, for its part, provides a recent example of the way arguably the worst team in the country, the place for reject players who failed to make it in their own backyard, can patiently and cleverly build to success.
These days, cricketers want to come to Otago and work under coach Mike Hesson.
Note, too, the way Carisbrook sold out in quick order for the All Black-Springbok test this year.
If Otago can start winning again, then first the hard-core supporters - who have suffered again this year and who themselves have been giving up - will begin to return.
They will be followed by others and watching Otago will once again be the place to congregate for community spirit and for entertainment.
