Rudyard Kipling's famous poem "If" opens with a well-known line.
"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs..."
Online fan forums have been filled since Wednesday night with the views and vitriol of Phoenix fans who've not only lost their heads, but clearly had them explode with rage.
Many took the very ordinary performance by Phoenix against Roar personally, as if the team bus had driven past their parents' house in the middle of the night while the players lobbed Molotov Cocktails through the window.
All they did was lose a football match to a far better side. They're certainly not the first team to suffer that fate and won't be the last.
Some of the knee-jerk reactions to this poor performance would be laughable if those suggesting them weren't actually serious.
No player has escaped criticism. Too old. Too slow. Invisible. Ineffective.
Inevitably, the call to introduce youth into the team has come from some quarters, including the quite bizarre suggestion that James Musa should replace one of the more established defenders.
Quite how a teenager who hasn't even played at New Zealand's highest domestic level, let alone made an A-League debut, would have fared better against a rampant Roar front-line is unclear. Musa has promise but he's not yet ready to mark Thomas Broich.
The attitude among some calling for change seems to be, "He could hardly do worse than (insert incumbent here). Why not throw him on with fifteen to go when they're 3-1 down?"
The problem with this viewpoint is it's not based around improvement of the team. Also, with just three outfield substitutes allowed, using one spot on the bench to include someone who will only be used in a "nothing to lose" scenario is simply mindless.
Before I'm accused of a blind refusal to face facts, let me be clear on this: the loss to Roar was a low point in Phoenix's season. Not only were they viciously exposed by a team whose ball speed and movement was far superior, they basically surrendered in the closing stages.
When has an opposition player ever been left alone on the penalty spot as Mitch Nichols was to complete the scoring? That's very un-Phoenix-like indeed, particularly at home.
But this isn't a time for impulsive, thoughtless and poorly considered actions. It's a time for cool heads. It's a time for those who navigated Phoenix from eighth place last Christmas to the Preliminary Final to again step up.
It's time for Ricki Herbert to settle on a core group of players and let them gel into some sort of cohesive combination.
This loss isn't the end of the world. There are still 18 games left in the regular season, during which there will hopefully be many more ups, but inevitably some more downs too.
Which leads nicely to another line from Kipling's famous verse...
"If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same..."
Phoenix fans tasted triumph in large quantities during the back-end of last season and revelled in the glow that came with that. But being a football fan means taking the good with the bad, and sometimes the disastrous.
The recent failings shouldn't be ignored or viewed through rose-tinted glasses, but a certain degree of perspective is also required.
