The Canberra Raiders sit right on the cusp of the top eight ahead of Round 16.
It goes without saying the season has been somewhat frustrating for the green machine.
As it stands, they have gone back and forth like the wind. Ricky Stuart's side were inconsistent last year and struggled at times before falling into the finals, and the trend has been somewhat similar this year.
Every now and again they put in a performance that makes them look like a side who should be higher on the ladder - the best example of that coming in Round 5 against the Parramatta Eels, but for the most part, it's either narrow wins or heavy losses.
They have won four of their last eight - which when you consider Canberra's pre-season expectations could be a solid pass mark - but those wins have come by one point over the Gold Coast Titans in Round 6, two points over the Manly Sea Eagles in Round 9, four points against the Canterbury Bulldogs in Round 11, and one point during Round 13 against the Dolphins.
In between those games, they have conceded 34 points at home on a freezing cold night which should have suited them against the North Queensland Cowboys, 44 points also at home against the Sydney Roosters, 40 points against the Cronulla Sharks and 34 points against the Brisbane Broncos.
In the earlier running of the season, they lost to the Cronulla Sharks conceding 36 points and the New Zealand Warriors conceding 18 points.
Of their losses this year, only one - the Round 3 clash against the Warriors - could be considered an acceptable defensive performance.
The rest have been atrocious at that end of the park for a Raiders side who, when they have gotten going, have proven they know how to find the tryline.
That was always likely to be the biggest problem for Stuart's side this year too. The loss of Jack Wighton to the South Sydney Rabbitohs in the pre-season and the club's seeming inability to bring in a top line replacement had real fears over Canberra and where they would end up at the back-end of the season.
But their mixed form, which, again, is showing plenty of similarities to the way they played last season, has them in the mix for the top eight.
The thing is, going from being in the mix for the top eight to any form of comfortability over the final weeks of the season is going to require a dramatic about-face at the defensive end of the park.
Even their close wins have shown moments of dreadfulness on the defensive side of the game. Lapses in concentration are one thing, and have plagued Canberra far too often - maybe understandable given the overall youth of the side they are running out each week - but it's also a structure thing.
During last weekend's clash against the Cowboys, time and time again players like Tom Dearden and Scott Drinkwater had their way as if they were running around in a training drill and the defenders had been told to stand there but do little else.
Simply put, it wasn't anywhere near approaching good enough from the Raiders, and if they want to play finals rugby league as they did last season, they are going to need to pick things up.
But the evidence is there that they can. They go through periods of solid, tough defensive work and grind their way to wins. If they can stick to the game plan and what has worked for them, then there is no reason they can't build their game off defence, which is only going to make the job of the forwards in attack, and therefore the kicking game being led by Kaeo Weekes and Ethan Strange for the time being, that much better.
Obviously there is no doubt that Jamal Fogarty's absence through injury has led Canberra to be plagued by more problems than they would have liked this season, and on that, it would be very easy to make the argument that the Raiders are in fact over-achieving.
But their attack has been strong without Fogarty, who certainly wouldn't do much to fix the ailing defence that is now the seventh-worst in the competition - it goes without saying that very few teams without a defence in the top eight are going to play finals rugby league, and as it stands, Canberra have conceded almost ten points more per game than the NRL's best defence in the Canterbury Bulldogs.
If the green machine can get it right, then they should be a side comfortably in a finals spot at the end of the year.
If it keeps faltering, then they are going to be one of those sides forced to fight and scrap for a top eight spot where they'd only be making up the numbers at the end of the year.
It's time for Canberra to be built different in defence.
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