Picture this: the Wallabies are three points up in the final minutes of the World Cup quarter-final or semi-final; they're holding strong in defence, withstanding attacking raid after attacking raid, when Lachie Swinton flies out of the line, shoulder cocked and straight into the face of the opposition. High, reckless and with no mitigating factors he's sent from the field with a red card.
A player down their defence is breached and the Wallabies and Eddie Jones' World Cup journey is over.
Known for his brash, hard-hitting game-style, Swinton is a player that loves contact, revels in it even, and often breaks games open, but with that style of play comes a thin line between physical play and dangerous contact, and it's a line Swinton has breached too many times before.
With a World Cup right around the corner Jones must ask himself, is he willing to risk it?
Called into Jones's first Wallabies squad on Sunday afternoon, Swinton was back in World Cup contention after finding recent form following a year off with a shoulder injury. Two days later his World Cup fortunes took a significant blow.
Within an hour of receiving the good news he'd be heading to the Gold Coast for the first of the year's training camps under Jones, Swinton was cited by the match review panel for his late and high hit on Western Force fly-half Jake Strachan.
Lucky to be missed by the on-field referees and the TMO on Saturday night, Swinton managed to avoid receiving any on-field sanctions for his action, but couldn't avoid a post-match judiciary hearing, eventually handed a seven-week ban for the reckless hit.
According to the judicial committee the hit was "highly dangerous" with no mitigating factors with the flanker making direct contact with Strachan's head and they ruled that it merited a top-end entry point of 10 weeks. It was only Swinton's guilty plea and remorse after the fact that saw the ban reduced.
But it's not the first time the firebrand Wallabies and Waratahs enforcer has found himself in front of a judicial committee. Since making his Waratahs debut in 2018 and his Wallabies bow in 2020, the flanker has received two red cards and three yellows - his yellow against the Springboks in 2021 fortunate to not also be a red.
For his red card dangerous hit on Sam Whitelock during his Wallabies debut Swinton received a four-week suspension ruling him out for the remainder of the international season in 2021. Earlier that same year he'd been lucky to have his red card scrubbed out following a dangerous cleanout in the Waratahs loss to the Chiefs in Sydney.
A red card in the early stages of the World Cup could have dire consequences, not just in the game for the Wallabies, but subsequently with Swinton's poor record certain to see a lengthy suspension imposed.
Fighting for a spot in a highly competitive Wallabies backrow -- which includes Rob Valetini, Pete Samu, Harry Wilson, Langi Gleeson and Brad Wilkin -- Swinton will now miss the remainder of the Super Rugby Pacific regular season and will have to hope the Waratahs sneak into the top eight for a finals appearance to have any chance to make an impression ahead of the four Bledisloe Cup and Rugby Championship Tests. A three-day camp on the Gold Coast will no doubt count for little.
According to former Brumbies backrow Locky McCaffrey this latest ban should see the end to Swinton's chances of making the World Cup team.
"If I'm a coach I think having a team that's disciplined and playing in the right areas of the field is what wins you international rugby at the moment," McCaffrey said on ESPN Scrum Reset podcast. "Having a player out there that you can't trust in terms of, yes, they're going to bring physicality and intent, but at the same time you go 20-minutes with playing with 14 players, you're giving away territory by giving away soft silly penalties, that can be the difference in these quarter-finals, semi-finals and as a coach I'd be picking your 15 most reliable and disciplined players and smart players.
"It's about winning a game of rugby with physicality but with controlled physicality. If you just put blokes out there that want to get into UFC fights out on the pitch, then they're not built for rugby.
"The rugby field is for 15 players who bring brains and skill to a paddock and at the moment I think we can really stamp it out with better coaches, selecting those style of players instead of keep giving these guys and almost making excuses for them."
But Jones has form in sticking with his confrontational hard hitters. You need only look at Dylan Hartley, the hooker with a rap sheet that includes head-butting and who by 2015 had spent a total 54 weeks of his career on the sideline through suspension. Jones would go on to name him England captain to start his tenure with England.
A coach who marches to the beat of his own drum and a proponent of the old school smash and bash, Swinton is a player Jones can't help but love, but with discipline such an issue for this Wallabies group in the Dave Rennie era, can Jones risk continuing the trend?