Western Force may just have amassed the on and off-field ammunition to survive the Super Rugby cull ahead of the Melbourne Rebels.
With both teams having completed their 2017 season, they wait to learn from the Australian Rugby Union which of them is to be cut from the competition - a decision the ARU has taken almost 100 days over so far.
The Rebels' 32-29 home loss to the Jaguares left them contemplating their worst-ever season in which they notched just one win and a draw from 15 matches and ended with eight straight losses.
Conversely, the Force ended on a high with a thumping 40-11 home victory over a dismal NSW Waratahs, their sixth win of the campaign, making it their best season since 2014.
The win secured second spot in the Australian conference with the same 6-9 record as the Brumbies, who finished top by virtue of earning eight more bonus points.
But perhaps more significantly, after the game the players were addressed on the ground by billionaire mining magnate Andrew Forrest,
He pledged to do everything within his powers to help the Perth-based franchise avoid the chop and has assured them they will survive.
The end of the 2017 competition is less than three weeks away and Tuesday will mark 100 days since the Australian Rugby Union's announcement a resolution on which of the two franchises would be culled would come in 48 to 72 hours.
The process became more protracted as the ARU consented to giving the Force and Rebels more time and the franchises investigated legal options.
The ARU and Force are scheduled to go to arbitration at the end of July over the alliance agreement the two parties signed last year.
The Rebels and ARU were supposed to go into mediation in July over the Victorian club's damages claim, but the two parties set that aside and continued talks.
However, there have been no formal talks over the past week as Rebels owner Andrew Cox is believed to be in the United States.
While the ARU seem irrevocably committed to culling a franchise, Rugby Union Players' Association boss Ross Xenos has advocated a 16-team competition, retaining all five local franchises, now that South African sides the Cheetahs and Kings have been cut.
Xenos said his proposal would enable every team to play each other once, eliminating the controversial and widely unpopular conference system and making the competition easier to understand with just the one ladder.
He said keeping all five teams alive through to the end of the current broadcast agreement in 2020 would give Australian rugby the chance to build towards a Trans-Tasman competition.
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