With around sixteen minutes of Friday's defeat to go some Wigan Warriors fans left the DW Stadium.
They had had enough. The goading of the St Helens fans too piercing. The mediocrity of the performance too disheartening. The disappointment of the result too engulfing.
St Helens' rowdy following mocked their rivals when the Warriors went for goal despite being behind. The subdued counter of the Warriors faithful was a silent acknowledgement of embarrassment. It only got worse after that as they watched their team completely lose the plot under the pressure of the more athletic, superior champions. Wigan didn't score a single try. They received more sin-bins than they did score points.
Over a period of time, Wigan's crowds have been dwindling. More accurately, they have been plummeting. Attendances fell 25 per cent over an eight-year period before Covid. A little over 16,000 people turned up for the derby on Friday. Wigan averaged 15,200 per game in 2011. The figures do not lie, disillusionment and apathy is rife.
There was a time when every Wigan defeat seemed like a reason for panic. There was a period when every defeat would result in a microscopic inquest. Rival fans would revel in Wigan getting turned over. They would beg, plead and pray for Wigan to be defeated.
Now it's accepted and in many cases, it is expected. Even the most hardened Wigan fans gave them little hope of toppling their old foe on Friday. For the majority on the outside, it would have been a shock if the Warriors had actually won.
Last week's defeat to Hull KR, a side who finished bottom of Super League last season, was met by general disinterest. The defeat to St Helens, a pain once unbearable, is now disappointing but far from surprising.
Wigan have won one of the last nine games against their arch-nemesis. The last time they went on a run like that was the barren mid-noughties. Before that, a sequence of results like this hadn't occurred since 1897, the very beginning of the sport's existence.
Wigan, as a club, has lost something. Something isn't right. The problem is that nobody can quite put their finger on what that thing is.
There are clearly issues too. On top of falling crowds, Wigan's best players keep leaving for pastures new. Others have been allowed to leave and subsequently become better players elsewhere. Heck, some have had the chance to return and instead signed for rivals instead. A bonafide club legend went back on an agreement to coach them. Recruitment hasn't lived up to expectations. These are all by-products of the end result and to put it simply, Wigan are quickly heading towards a third season without a trophy.
And it's hard to believe that any of the above would have happened in years gone by. There was a time when players would sign and stay at Wigan because it was Wigan. That aura doesn't exist anymore.
Forget Grand Finals, forget being all-conquering, this is Wigan's biggest challenge. First and foremost, they need to make people care again, they need people to regard the club as highly as those immersed in its values and its history do. Because too many are beginning not to care or do not care at all.
The reality is that Wigan are probably not as far off being back at the top as it seems. Let's not forget this is a team that was a failed penalty goal attempt from winning the big crown last year.
We all know there are mitigating factors too. It's no surprise that Catalans and Saints top the table given their significantly better injury records this season. Wigan's, by comparison, has been horrifying.
Patience is required with the youngsters too. A lot of players are being blooded at the same time, though this is largely a result of a recruitment programme that hasn't met the club's standards.
But the club can only live off that justification for so long. Many of the young stars playing now have been doing so for several years, yet Wigan seem further away from winning a trophy than ever. Both Morgan Smithies and Ollie Partington recently made their 50th appearances for the club. Ethan Havard and Liam Byrne have miles under the belt. Harry Smith has played regularly for the last 12 months. By rights, Wigan should have gone through their period of transition. Instead, it feels like it is only beginning.
The hope is that eventually, their perseverance in youth will pay off. How they must hope that happens. If it doesn't, Wigan are in trouble. It's a tried and tested process that the club will rightly put faith in, but there will always be doubts until success arrives and Wigan have invested too much time for there to be no reward now.
The reality, though, is that it has been Wigan's external recruitment that has been a bigger problem than internal promotions. Most recently, John Bateman, an undoubtedly brilliant player, has been disappointing. We've hardly seen Jai Field. George Burgess, another marquee signing, came and went with only a handful of forgettable appearances to his name. Mitch Clark has never fit in. Jarrod Sammut lasted a year. All four players signed in 2018 are no longer around. No club will ever get every piece of recruitment right but Wigan have got too many wrong.
Things are nowhere near as bad as they have been in the past. Wigan's current strife has nothing on the noughties. Wigan went 12 years without winning a Grand Final and six years without reaching a major final. They even flirted with relegation in 2006. They recovered emphatically from that.
But as it stands, there are plenty of reasons to question what the future holds for the club in the future.
It's easy to over-react after a defeat, particularly to Saints. But it was a loss that only emphasised the fears of many.
