The end of the Super Rugby season can't come quick enough for the Melbourne Rebels.
The competition's new boys slumped to their seventh successive defeat, a 40-3 home loss to South African heavyweights the Stormers at AAMI Park on Friday night.
Not for the first time in their inaugural season, the Rebels looked bereft of ideas in attack and couldn't stem the tide defensively to remain at the footy of the Super Rugby table.
Certainly coach Rod Macqueen didn't pull any punches post-match when asked whether the defeat was the club's worst to date.
"Yes by far," Macqueen said.
"We're really disappointed, the reason being that towards the end of the season we're expecting to do better, expecting our shape to come good."
"There's no excuse for it. We just played poorly as an outfit."
Captain Stirling Mortlock echoed his coach's sentiments and lamented the fact the Rebels can't translate their preparation on the training track to when it counts.
"We've been working hard on our game for the past month and it's not translating on the pitch," Mortlock said.
"It's all of us, we've got to focus on getting more out of each other."
The Rebels' hopes of avoiding the wooden-spoon rest with getting at least one win from their final two matches against the ACT Brumbies (away) and Western Force (home).
Macqueen acknowledges Melbourne can salvage something from the wreck.
"These next two games are going to be vital for us, we have to concentrate on ourselves because we're the ones making the mistakes," Macqueen said.
"We need to get some creativity back into our game."
Quizzed on whether controversial English import Danny Cipriani was the man to provide that spark, Macqueen replied.
"One person wasn't going to make a difference to that game tonight," Cipriani said.
"At the moment Danny can't be selected, so until that's sorted out with the administration we'll be selecting from the players available."