What a difference a year makes in the fortunes of a Super 15 coach - just ask the Blues' Bryce Woodward.
Last year the former Northland coach was smiling serenely as his Blues backline blitzed allcomers on the way to the semifinals. This year they can't buy a trick and he's already been consigned to the scrapheap alongside Pat Lam ... or has he?
The assistant coach believes it's too early to try and guess his fate. Last week's announcement by management that they would advertise Lam's head coaching role before his job was even up for review stirred a media frenzy but there was little speculation on Woodward's future.
Having slipped under the radar, he patiently awaits a crucial end-of-season performance review.
"Based on our outcome performances, clearly I'm up for a potential challenge ... and while they've already announced they will advertise the head coach role, they won't make any decisions around the assistants until the head job is nailed down," he said.
The fact Lam's job was advertised before the official review process would take place in July was a blow: "It was a bit of a dampener for Pat and I, but really the teams' performances haven't been great so we couldn't argue about it, we've just got to get on with it."
The team have games left against the Crusaders, Highlanders and Chiefs. Winning those could provide the players a lifeline in terms of securing a future Blues contract, not to mention the beleaguered backline coach.
To save his job, Woodward will need a review score of 75 per cent or better. Even though the team performance criteria is only 12 per cent of the review process, at the moment he isn't expecting to score highly and any late boost would be welcome.
"If you get zero out of 12 in one category, then you're going to need to be pretty outstanding in the others to make sure your position isn't up for grabs," Woodward said.
"Clearly, the win over the Lions was a monkey off our back in terms of stopping the rot but whether we can lift our level enough to beat the Crusaders this week we'll have to wait and see."
He says the coaches must share some of the responsibility for this year's failures but long-term injuries to key players such as Jerome Kaino and Isaia Toeava hadn't helped. Eight current or ex-All Blacks were unavailable last week.
For Woodward, the main difference in the backline has been the absence of quality ball players such as Stephen Brett, Luke McAlister, Jared Payne and, of course, Toeava.
"We've got a lot of exciting ball runners but we're short of quality ball players who can run at defences with the ball in two hands and challenge the opposition," he said.
The irony is Woodward believes he has worked a lot harder in his job this year but, with little to show for it, his first Super 15 role could be over in little more than a month.