The worst thing about England's latest international rugby league flop is that nobody in this country or in Australia is remotely surprised and even fewer people than ever seem to be concerned. The empty seats in Melbourne on Sunday, and the minimal media impact the Four Nations series has made over here, are two sides of the same coin. England, and before that Great Britain, have now been failing for so long that they are no longer taken seriously, either by the league aficionados of Queensland and New South Wales or the floating sporting public of the UK.
It is 38 years since the national team last took a trophy off Australia, when Great Britain lifted the 1972 World Cup in France. But for the first half of the 1990s, international rugby league enjoyed a stirring revival as the Lions teams, coached by Malcolm Reilly and featuring such resonant names as Ellery Hanley, Shaun Edwards, Jonathan Davies and Martin Offiah, won one of the first three Tests in three consecutive Ashes series and had the mighty Kangaroos genuinely worried.
It was a similar story in the 1995 World Cup that celebrated the code's centenary, as an England team coached by Phil Larder beat Australia in the tournament's opening match at Wembley, only to be pipped 16-8 in the final three weeks later.
However there is an argument that the decline had already begun, with the failure to capitalise on the Super League war that robbed Australia of many of their best players - Laurie Daley, Ricky Stuart, Andrew Ettingshausen et al.
Meanwhile British rugby league had already been snapped up by Rupert Murdoch as a pawn in his battle with the establishment of Australian Rugby League, providing an unprecedented financial injection which allowed the leading clubs to employ players on a full-time basis, a luxury that had previously been enjoyed only by Wigan and a couple of their less well-run rivals.
However that opportunity was spectacularly squandered, with the £87m achieving little more than protecting the game from more widespread defections to rugby union, which was by then openly professional. When British rugby league tried to stage another World Cup, on a wildly ambitious scale five years later, the stagnation and decline of playing standards was highlighted.
In the subsequent decade, a new Rugby Football League administration has made admirable progress in clearing up the horrible financial mess that threatened the game's viability in this country and in promoting grassroots development on a national scale. But the last three weeks have shown that the last World Cup in 2008, inflicted another savage blow to the credibility of international league - or more specifically, of England's ability to compete.
England travelled to Australia two years ago with genuine hopes of mounting a challenge. But they returned humiliated, after a brace of defeats by New Zealand, a 50-point mauling by the Kangaroos in Melbourne and a narrow squeak against Papua New Guinea in Townsville.
There were a few promising signs in a Four Nations series on home soil last autumn, with a good win against New Zealand and a spirited effort against Australia in the final before they were blown away by some irresistible Kangaroo brilliance in the last 20 minutes. But that was not enough for many Aussies to deem England worthy of close attention in Melbourne this weekend and the sceptics were proved right.
That leaves the RFL in an unenviable position as they prepare to launch the next World Cup - which will be held in Europe in 2013 - in Salford's Media City at the end of this month. The national team isn't credible and its lack of progress continues to undermine the Super League competition that produces it.
So where do we go from here? That would require another blog, which you can help write with your comments below. More players to be exported to the NRL?More intensity for domestic rugby by reducing the number of teams, and fixtures, in the Super League, or by the introduction of some form of State of Origin series possibly including another nationalities' team?
Perhaps, as the England coach Steve McNamara and the RFL would argue, we're already on the right lines. This Four Nations certainly hasn't been as bad as the last World Cup and the young players who have suffered in Wellington and Melbourne will hopefully be better for the experience.
But the situation remains serious. Somehow, the game's authorities have to convince the rugby league public and well beyond, in this country and Australia, that the gulf in international standards can be bridged in less than three years.
Australian officials need to heed the words of Russell Crowe, the South Sydney Rabbithos owner who seems to talk more sense about the game than any administrator and who retweeted this weekend: "ARL should be doing everything to help strengthen other nations league sides, not do everything possible to win. The big picture is the important thing for international league games, not simply for Aus to win"
Neutral referees and Super League interpretations around the rucks for next year's Four Nations would be a start.
Britain's injection of common sense should come from Hanley, who has remained on the outer since his ice skating escapades, but gave a fascinating interview to the Sydney Sun Herald last week.
"They'll do very well to get close to Australia," he said of England before the Melbourne match. "The competition is so intense in Australia, the NRL lends itself to discipline all the time. England don't have that, hence why Australia is so much better on the international scene.
"They're not used to playing intense rugby for 80 minutes because the competition doesn't lend itself to that. The competition in England lends itself to great rugby and spectacular tries but the key to being great is finding consistency. You can have everybody talking about how good Super League is, that the game is better and more attractive - but Australia do it better consistently and have done for decades."
So that's Russell Crowe to run the next World Cup, and Ellery Hanley to chair a commission on a restructure of the British game. Over to you.
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