With exactly three minutes left on the clock and the ball deep on a half-forward flank at a rain-soaked Alice Springs' Traeger Park, Greater Western Sydney was 15th on the AFL live ladder, and about to be consigned to another honourable loss in a fruitless season.
Twenty seconds later, after Josh Kelly's long-range bomb from close to 60 metres out skidded through for a goal, the Giants were 10th and every chance to play finals in Adam Kingsley's first season as an AFL senior coach.
That's how fine the line is between perceived success and failure these days, and in season 2023 in particular, with just two games between teams fourth and 12th with eight rounds left to go.
Every week it seems, some contender's stocks are on the rise while another is deemed to be in trouble.
Sometimes it doesn't even take a loss for the assessment to change. Geelong was said to be back in the ball game after beating Melbourne in Round 15, but doubts were cast over the Cats again after fortunately escaping with a draw from the SCG on Friday night. The Western Bulldogs, meanwhile, are being talked up again after a good win over Fremantle.
About the one team that has escaped virtually any discussion, however, is Kingsley's, which sits above nearly all those teams discussed in finals terms relentlessly, and frankly, probably now deserves to be regarded as a more serious September possibility, too.
The Giants have now won four of their past five games and could easily have won five in a row, the only reversal in that time a nail-biting six-point loss to Richmond in Round 12. But what had been overlooked completely prior to then is how consistently competitive they'd been even with the win-loss ledger at 3-7 only a few weeks back.
Kingsley has in a very short space of time built a team which seems to have a very high baseline in terms of effort, GWS week in, week out pushing even the very best in the competition all the way.
The Giants have knocked over both of last year's grand finalists Geelong and Sydney away from home, beaten another top eight team in Adelaide, smashed Fremantle by 70 points only a fortnight ago and now rolled Melbourne on their first ever trip to Alice Springs.
Their run home compares favourably with some other September aspirants as well. GWS will start a warm favourite against both Hawthorn and Gold Coast over the next few weeks, with games against Adelaide and Western Bulldogs at worst winnable. Same goes for their final month up against Sydney, Port Adelaide, Essendon and Carlton.
Their most important calling card however might end up being reliability, even in defeat.
Of their eight losses this season, the Giants have only lost one game (against top team Collingwood) by any more than 21 points. That's despite ranking only ninth for points scored, and a lowly 15th for fewest points conceded.
But not dropping heads even under duress is becoming perhaps the defining characteristic of Kingsley's team. Against Melbourne in the Alice, a lesser team would eventually have wilted under the sort of bombardment the Giants were copping.
In the end, the Demons had a whopping 73 inside 50 entries, with 5.15 (45) the obviously costly result of that territory dominance. Melbourne almost doubled the Giants for clearance wins, and at the centre bounces the count was 14-2 the Demons' way.
But GWS has a capacity to absorb punishment without it impacting on the Giants' own plans too much, and has been conscious of advancing its own younger players' development.
While there's still players who were synonymous with those Giants line-ups from 2016-19, when they reached two preliminary finals and a grand final, there's also plenty who don't necessarily have the pedigree to catch the critical eye.
The focus is always on stars in the shape of Kelly, Tom Green, Toby Greene, Stephen Coniglio and Lachie Whitfield. But it's been their capacity to work with the newcomers, lesser lights and a new coach which has made GWS a much tougher proposition this season than previously. And that despite the seemingly annual issues the Giants have with injuries.
Lachie Ash, Finn Callaghan and the "reborn" Brent Daniels have been important, Sam Taylor's return to the line-up in a key defensive post timely, and there's been unlikely sparks from the likes of Irishman Callum Brown.
For all the experience and class of the older Giants, the continual turning over of the list has left GWS this year with the fourth-least experienced group in the competition.
Which makes Kingsley's effort in eliciting this level of consistent performance from the Gold Coast playing group all the more impressive.
Barely a person in the football world wouldn't have had the Giants bottom four on their predicted 2023 ladders, the other three teams anticipated to fill that quartet West Coast, North Melbourne and Hawthorn all dutifully playing their roles.
The upstart Giants, however, don't want to do what they're told. Off-Broadway or not, they're turning into one of 2023's best stories, and who is prepared already to suggest how much later it ends, other than entertainingly?
You can read more of Rohan Connolly's work at Footyology.