Western Force coach Simon Cron will take plenty of advice from his medical and conditioning staff before picking the squad that flies to Fiji for Saturday's SMARTECH Super Rugby Pacific clash with the Drua.
The selection process was not made any easier after the side was forced to make 308 tackles in the exhausting and bruising 33-14 loss to the Brumbies at HBF Park on Saturday night.
And Cron said despite sitting ninth on the ladder, four points out of the top six, they were still daring to dream of a finals spot.
With two games in New Zealand before returning to Perth for the Brumbies, the flight to Fiji on Monday will be another tough trip.
The game in Lautoka kicks off at 11:35am WST, live on Stan sport.
"We have to be really smart about who can be the best they can be when they head away and come back again," Cron said.
"Look at how many tackles were made in the game."
The three top tacklers were all forwards - captain Jeremy Williams and prop Tom Robertson each made 29 and hooker Nic Dolly 25 - the trio made three more than entire Brumbies side who completed just 80 of their own.
Cron said he was disappointed by the result but when asked if he thought finals were still a chance he said: "Never quit.
"We've got to step up and go again."
One player who will be under scrutiny by medical staff for the Fiji game will be flanker and Super Rugby top scorer Carlo Tizzano who was a late withdrawal from the Brumbies with a pectoral injury.
"It was too big a risk with the injury he has for us to play him safely," Cron said.
Cron said they should have gone into the half-time break against the now second-placed Brumbies level at seven points apiece but leaked a late try.
"We were in a good position at half-time," he said.
Flanker Kane Koteka, who replaced Tizzano, opened the Force scoring midway through the first period but the Brumbies hit back with three tries, one before the break.
Mac Grealy added the Force second to close the gap before the visitors stretched the lead late in the game.
Cron He was pleased with the first 20 minutes defensively as the Brumbies "tried to punch down the front door" in their narrow attack.
"By the end of the game the boys tackled themselves out," he said.
"You can only ask the boys to do it for so long until they start to wilt. Some of them really worked their bum off.
"As a coach you can't go too hard at them because some of them got off the ground and made so many tackles."
Cron identified a number of areas for improvement - holding onto the ball, maintaining possession and cutting out turnovers, among others.
"The fixer is us not turning the ball over so easily," he said.
"We've got to hold the ball and attack and make them make tackles.
"Second phase, some hands up and dropping it, counter-attack, going for the high ball, we dropped it.
"Quick turnover transition, we spun it and kicked it away. We didn't build any power of possession.
"You make 10 or 11 tackles and give an offside away so you give them a free shot."
Cron said after winning some of the early kick battles they fell away.
"Where we were a little bit off was the contestable zone," he said.
"We didn't get up for own contestable's and they came through onto ours."
An exhausted Williams said he was "gutted" with the result.
"We didn't really help ourselves a lot of the time," he said. "Easy turnovers and our discipline was really hurting us.
"That tackle stat is a reflection of us turning over the ball and discipline. I'd love not to have made that amount of tackles and really pressure them with our attack.
"When we hold the ball and our attack is firing we are a dangerous team."
