After a tough loss people like to offer comfort and support. "I know how you feel," they say. But, in reality, they don't.
Well I can say to the Rebels, I DO know how you feel after their debacle last week against the Crusaders. The same outfit dished us up 96-19 in 2002. The irony of last weekend's game, when the Melbourne outfit went down 85-26, was that if the Rebels were playing under the old rules they would have landed a bonus point. Imagine that, losing by 59 and getting a bonus point for your efforts!
I was flooded with text messages from mates hoping that I would lose the tag of captaining a team to the worst loss in Super Rugby history. Sadly, it wasn't to be. The scary part is that only a few weeks ago the Rebels were in the running for the finals. 
Last weekend didn't serve Aussie rugby followers well, with all five teams losing; the worst result for Australian teams in 11 years.
And that didn't get much better on Friday night when the Waratahs lost to the Blues in Auckland. At least an Aussie team had a win in Brisbane when the Reds ended their dismal season with a loss to the Rebels. One of them had to win.
So what's the problem? Former Reds and Wallabies coach John Connolly suggested on the Fox Sports website that we are limiting ourselves by playing a ball-in-hand style and not being smart by putting boot to ball. Bobby Dwyer said in my column two weeks ago that he doesn't like the second-man plays as they go away from the fundamentals of attacking rugby.
So where to from here as we approach the Bledisloe Cup? Michael Cheika keeps preaching the mantra of ball in hand and about keeping the faith, but didn't the series loss to England teach us anything? Perhaps we're putting all our eggs in one basket?
It may yield success against lesser teams, but against stronger line-ups, it poses no threat as you always know what is coming.
We have stolen these second-man plays from rugby league, but there is a significant difference between the two codes: league blokes take the ball to the line; we don't. Simple.
Anyone can see that when Bernard Foley is on song he is attacking the man in front of him; fixing him, as we used to call it, with options inside and outside. Often times he goes on a little darting run and makes some metres.
All of the Australian teams need to employ a flatter attacking style, where everyone is running at the line and everyone is an option, a threat, because at the moment we are only playing with half of our resources.
The Waratahs' best player, Israel Folau, only gets his hands on the ball with four defenders confronting him, and the sideline fast approaching.
  Maybe we just go back to the under-12 tactic of getting the ball to the best player on the team? So give it to Izzy and let him do something special.
For that to happen, he would have to move to No.13 where he can get the ball much more easily. The other news is that Australian rugby could be getting a quality ball player back in the mix with Quade Cooper finishing up at Toulon.
If he signs for the Reds for two years he is eligible to play for the national team. We know the coach is a fan and therefore there could be a real push for Cooper to fill the No.10 jumper as soon as   August 20, the first Bledisloe clash. The question is, does Cooper have too many scars playing against New Zealand? Would he be better served playing against South Africa and Argentina?
The emphasis for the Wallabies between now and   August 20 has to be reclaiming that belief from the World Cup, which seems to have gone missing.