This has been a tough old time for Raelene Castle.
She is certainly not alone, as sports administrators across the world grapple with the coronavirus pandemic, each trying to map a way through the darkness to ensure their team, league or code emerges out the other side.
But few have found themselves the focus of the same intense criticism as Castle.
News last week that Rugby Australia had posted a $[Aus]9.4 million deficit for 2019 served as the tipping point for several high-profile figures within the rugby community, and perhaps her fiercest critic, former Wallabies coach turned radio host, Alan Jones, to ramp up their attacks on the Rugby Australia chief executive.
And RA's tit-for-tat battle with the Rugby Union Players Association [RUPA] only further encouraged them to pour fuel on an already raging fire.
Where the NRL's Todd Greenberg and Peter V'Landys and AFL's Gillon McLachlan have both at least received some praise for their attempts to navigate the greatest global challenge since World War II, the voices calling for Castle's head have seized their opportunity and are beating the drum louder than ever.
So do the likes of Wallabies Rod Kafer and Nick Farr-Jones and shock-jock Alan Jones have a point when they call for Castle's sacking? Or does this reek of opportunism as they push for a return to rugby's old-school roots, and the appointment of former teammate Phil Kearns?
Let's look at the facts.
CASTLE MUST BE SACKED
To understand why Rugby Australia's chief executive finds herself the subject of such severe criticism, you have to go back to the end of 2018. Yes, before that whole Israel Folau thing went down.
But it wasn't just the whole Folau saga that saw Australian rugby fall another few rungs on its downward spiral. The man who first brought the code-hopper to rugby, Michael Cheika, was at that stage also fighting for his survival.
Cheika had just piloted the Wallabies through their worst season result since 1958, registering a paltry four wins from 13 Tests. Australia had been whitewashed 3-0 by the All Blacks, had lost a home series to Ireland for the first time, and were also beaten by Argentina on home soil.
For many, the Cheika days should have been done. But instead of showing him the door, Castle and the Rugby Australia board saw enough in his presentation to grant him the chance to turn things around, at least under the stewardship of new Director of Rugby Scott Johnson, anyway.
The end result was a quarterfinal exit for the Wallabies, and the same old Cheika tune that spoke of Australians not wanting their team to play a "kick and defend" game; that they instead demanded attacking rugby that brought on brilliant tries like the one scored by Marika Koroibete against England ... but also left them vulnerable to crushing 27-point defeats.
Was Castle right to keep Cheika on? The World Cup result suggests not. And as a I wrote the following afternoon from Oita, Rugby Australia had to shoulder its fair share of the blame for such an embarrassing exit, too.
In the days and weeks that followed, as stories of Cheika's Tokyo run-in with Castle were aired and the coach himself admitted he didn't like working within a Director of Rugby framework, the decision to retain Cheika some 12 months earlier looked ever more foolish.
Now to Folau, for whom we must again return to the end of 2018 when the world was all too aware of his anti-homosexual public rhetoric.
Folau had taken to social media to express his views on multiple occasions throughout 2018, prefaced by the belief that they were coming from a place of "love". The superstar fullback was hauled into Rugby Australia for talks, was eventually never sanctioned, but also wrote an article for the AthletesVoice website that he was prepared to walk away from his contract if RA thought his faith was doing the code more harm than good.
It had also been made clear to Folau what would happen should he post similar rhetoric on social media again and, now at the end of 2018, Castle sought assurances in the form of written contractual guarantees, that Folau would not do so.
Folau was advised not to sign a contract that included such terminology and didn't as a result, only for Castle and Rugby Australia to re-sign him on a four-year deal anyway. And we all know what happened some four months later.
While Folau had his contract torn up, a decision ratified by an independent three-person panel, he later launched civil proceedings against Rugby Australia. While many legal experts believed RA to be in a position of strength when it came to the courts, the Folau case had transformed into something far more than a minor sports law case. It had effectively become a test-case for free speech and the extent of religious freedoms in Australia.
In the end, just a few weeks out from Christmas, RA opted to settle with Folau out of court for an undisclosed fee. It is believed the exact number is somewhere between $2-4 million.
Whatever that figure is, it will have formed a significant portion of the $9.4m deficit announced by RA last week. Castle's call to re-sign Folau on a multi-million-dollar four-year deal, without guarantees that he would not post further controversial sentiments, has proved to be an incredibly costly decision.
As could not having a television deal in place.
Rugby Australia's five-year, $280m deal with Fox Sports Australia, expires at the end of 2020. At this stage, negotiations for the next cycle have been suspended. But a deal could have already been signed, sealed and delivered.
Hoping to secure the next five-year period, Fox Sports attempted to roll over their existing $30 million per year deal - the difference was made up through overseas broadcasters and the other SANZAAR partners -- during their exclusive negotiation period. When that was knocked back, Fox Sports pulled their offer and Rugby Australia instead headed to market, believing it could get a better deal than what their incumbent broadcaster had offered.
The coronavirus pandemic arrived in Australia a few weeks later, and RA was forced to suspend its rights tender process without a deal and with no idea of when or in what form rugby could return down the road.
This financial hole and the uncertainty ahead is the basis of the case against Castle.
YOU CAN'T JUSTIFY SACKING CASTLE NOW
There are counter arguments to each of the errors Castle has seemingly made. And then there are the good things she has been able to do, examples of real change for the game in Australia, for which she should be applauded.
But let's start with the Cheika situation.
Just a couple of hours after the Wallabies had been embarrassed by England in Japan last October, Castle fronted up to the travelling Australian media contingent deep within the corridors of Oita Stadium. She stood by RA's decision not to sack Cheika, stating that RA had canvassed the coaching market at the end of 2018 and decided that there was no suitable candidate to take over; in other words, that there was no-one available who could turn around the team's fortunes in nine months.
RA would have also had to pay out the final year of Cheika's contract, reportedly in excess of $1m, an extension the former Wallabies coach had negotiated under then-Australian Rugby Union boss Bill Pulver, just weeks before Eddie Jones' England arrived Down Under. They departed in late June with a 3-0 series win in their back pocket, and Cheika never managed a victory over Jones in their four further Tests over the next three years.
There is no doubt the Wallabies' World Cup campaign descended into a trainwreck; signs of a quarterfinal exit were obvious long before Australia were rattled by Fiji in their opening game of the tournament.
But only a month later, Castle had her man: Dave Rennie.
Upon taking the job, Rennie mentioned how impressed he'd been with the RA boss and her vision for the game in Australia. Rennie also revealed RA had been in contact long before New Zealand Rugby had come calling and invited him to apply for the All Blacks job. Rennie was a wanted man, and Castle had got him.
Now to Folau, supposedly a man of his word.
Like so many other Australian rugby fans, Castle clearly wanted to trust her star player on account of the amazing skills that he brought to the game. Even considering his thoughts on society, Folau was one of the Wallabies' true marketable faces.
In hindsight, Castle should have followed the decision of the Salteri family, private donors to Rugby Australia, who according to the Sydney Morning Herald, pulled their contribution to Folau's contract at the end of 2018.
Perhaps the Salteri clan saw through Folau. But Castle wanted to trust her star player, did so, and paid a heavy price.
While the saga divided more than just the Australian rugby community and engulfed the nation itself, those who had stood staunchly by Folau must have had their support severely tested when the code-hopper declared the long-running drought and bushfires - at that stage only the start of what was to come in a terrible summer - had been the result of Australia's legalization of same-sex marriage and changes to the abortion laws.
Not even Folau's most ardent support, Alan Jones, could cop that.
And the next round of broadcast rights? What kind of crazy businessperson would ever consider taking their product to market, rather than accepting a rollover of the current deal from partners who now saw rugby as "non-marquee" sport. The hide.
Was Castle supposed to have gazed into her crystal Gilbert and predicted the coronavirus pandemic, too, forcing RA to suspend its negotiations without a deal for the next five-year cycle?
Some within the Australian media landscape would like you to believe that taking the cash that was on the table was the right decision, despite their being genuine interest from telco Optus and a desire from Channel 10 to potentially increase their free-to-air offering, too.
It led to such media headlines as "Rugby last rights" and "RA coup: Wallabies great poised to replace Castle", the latter of which saw attacks from News Corp publications in particular, hit a whole new level.
The connection is there to be made between News Corp's majority ownership of Fox Sports, who took umbrage to the fact their offer was knocked back, and the renewed hostility to Castle.
Anyone who can't recognise that has their head buried deep within a ruck, so deeply that even Richie McCaw has already rolled away.
Fox Sports commentator and Wallabies great Tim Horan at last provided some balance on Tuesday, declaring now was not the time to sack Castle.
What has also been lost in all of this, is some of the changes RA have made under Castle's leadership, such as the establishment of a Fighting Fund to retain talented youngsters who previously may have been lost to the NRL.
The Fighting Fund was used to keep the bulk of the most promising bunch of Under 20 players Australia have had for some time; a group of players who reached the final of the Junior World Championship last year; but whom, as former Wallabies captain Stephen Moore warned ESPN this week, must be given time to reach their full potential.
Compare the creation of that Fighting Fund against, say, the pursuit of rugby league players with the cash windfall from the 2001 British & Irish Lions series.
Lote Tuqiri, Wendell Sailor and Mat Rogers all made contributions to Australian rugby, but all three ended up back in league ... with varying degrees of their reputation intact.
Castle also brought Director of Rugby Scott Johnson back into the fold, and the Australian's previous working relationship with Rennie also played a role in the two-time Super Rugby-winning coach's decision to take on the Wallabies.
Now almost two years on, Johnson will reprise that same working relationship he had with Rennie.
SO LET'S PUMP THE BRAKES
There is not one professional sport of note on the planet, that hasn't been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and, for many, the financial challenges have already been, and will continue to be, significant.
There is likely going to be a huge financial correction across many Australian sports. Castle has already taken a 50 percent pay cut of her $800,000 salary. But there is indeed a need for a conversation as to whether that full $800K freight is too much as well, particularly when so many grassroots clubs do it so tough.
It's understandable that the players, represented by the Rugby Union Players Association [RUPA], were frustrated by the uncertainty around their position last week, leading to several stinging media releases that hit out at what RUPA saw as a "lack of transparency from RA". But it's not like Castle and her team had been sitting on its hands, and the standing down of 75 percent of their workforce surely reflects that.
There is no question that rugby has slipped well down the pecking order locally, but it's international exposure is a clear strength and one that requires greater collaboration across its leading powerbrokers.
Does Castle have a role to play there? Absolutely. And the fact that the Wallabies are ranked 7th in the world is simply not good enough either.
But to judge her on situations that have been beyond her control and problems that were created long before she took charge at Moore Park is inappropriate. Many of those voices would be better off offering their undoubted expertise for the good of the game instead.
And Phil Kearns, who is reportedly the man some Australia rugby powerbrokers want to take over, could be one of those. Sure he may have missed out on the top job to Castle originally, but there should be nothing stopping he, nor any Wallabies greats of that golden era from the turn of the century, from picking up the phone and offering a simple "How can I help?"
That's if they truly want to help the game.
The easy option would be to wait eight months when Castle's deal expires. It could be that by then her broadcast gamble has failed or she has been let down by a global rugby community that has thumbed its nose at arguably its greatest chance to establish The World in Union.
Or it might be that Raelene Castle simply doesn't seek reappointment. After the last week or so, who could blame her?