With two games to go in the national provincial premiership, Bay of Plenty can still qualify for the final in September or be relegated.
It's those permutations that has injected sizeable edge into tonight's clash between the Steamers and ITM Cup premiership front-runners Canterbury at Baypark Stadium, with Bay desperate to extricate themselves from the hole they've dug over the past four rounds.
Having dropped their past four games after a four-win start to the season, Bay are probably closer to life in the second-tier championship than they are to qualifying for the final.
The TAB thinks so. At $3.50 Bay were second favourites to win the premiership two weeks ago. Now they're being touted at $9, with Canterbury out in front at $2.
After tonight Bay play Southland in Invercargill on Sunday in a potential Ranfurly Shield challenge if the Stags can repel Taranaki tomorrow.
Steamers assistant coach Paul Feeney said the Shield, which the Bay last held seven years ago, hadn't even entered into their planning with such a short turnaround from Saturday's 25-16 loss to Auckland.
"Thinking about a possible challenge would be getting way too far ahead of ourselves - our entire focus has been on what we need to do to get points against Canterbury. Whatever will be will be as far as the weekend goes but Southland will be a big game for us for any number of reasons."
A bonus-point win tonight could propel Bay of Plenty right back into the playoffs mix.
"We've won four and lost four and yet we're still in with a shot at the final - it's a strange, incredible competition in that regard," Feeney said.
"With a week to go the permutations for all seven teams [in the premiership] are mind-boggling. Knock Canterbury over and we'd be up to similar points to them, and if you look at who else is playing who, Waikato have got Wellington and Auckland, Auckland's only got one game and Taranaki's got Southland and Hawke's Bay, so we're definitely a shot.
"In a normal season your best team might only have lost one or two games yet Canterbury has lost three.
"Midweek games are such a leveller, combined with the short turnarounds, teams not starting their top 15 players in every game and players getting banged up more."
Bay's slide has parallels with the 2010 national championship when they banked wins in their first four games then lost six of their next nine to finish the round-robin seventh and miss the playoffs. Seventh this season will represent relegation.
Canterbury, winners of the past three national championships, head north targeting a continuation of their expansive attacking game that has seem them bag six bonus points in eight games and a titanic battle at the breakdown against Bay's Colin Bourke, Sam Cane and Tanerau Latimer.
First-five Dan Waenga has been ruled out tonight as he continues a slow recovery from the head knock suffered against Hawkes Bay 10 days ago, with Feeney saying the entire squad's workload was being closely watched in the final week of round-robin.
"We're monitoring players and letting some individuals train slightly differently depending on how their bodies are feeling.
"It's not a blanket one-size-fits-all training regime because a lot depends on how many games and minutes an individual's played and what niggles they might be carrying.""