When Burton Albion travel to the Cardiff City Stadium at the end of March, they might think about asking the referee about the chances of shortening the game to an 80-minute contest.
Just as when the Brewers tackled Neil Warnock's side midway through their debut Championship campaign last term, Saturday's curtain-raiser at the Pirelli Stadium saw them hit by a dramatic late suckerpunch when the Albion defence looked to have answered all the questions asked of them.
For Rhys Healey's 91st-minute header at the start of the year, see an inch-perfect curling drive from Kenneth Zohore.
The difference, of course, is that the first of those last-gasp losses sent Albion into the bottom three of the table - for the only time in the entire season - against a side battling to move clear of danger themselves.
On Saturday, it was game number one of 46 for Burton - the earliest stage of what will be a long and gruelling campaign.
Lessons, though, will still be learned from defeat to a side seen by many as dark horses for a promotion push this term.
Burton's target, of course, is a very different one from Cardiff's in 2017/18. Once again, survival is the primary aim for Nigel Clough 's side.
If they are to do just that, making the most of their resources will be as crucial as it was last season - and with record signing Liam Boyce out for the foreseeable future, that challenge is ratcheted up a notch.
With that selection decision taken out of his hands, the Brewers boss elected to leave Lucas Akins as a lone striker against the Bluebirds, as he had done in a fine display against Leicester City in midweek.
That meant Marvin Sordell - Burton's only other fully-fit senior forward, with Luke Varney on the bench after a period out with a hamstring injury - was stationed on the right flank of a midfield five, with Jackson Irvine, Matty Lund and Luke Murphy the central trio and Lloyd Dyer on the left.
Despite having favoured a three-man defence through much of pre-season, Clough instead went with four at the back to nullify Cardiff's three-pronged attack of Lee Tomlin, Junior Hoilett and Zohore.
John Mousinho - again used at right-back - Kyle McFadzean, Jake Buxton and Stephen Warnock were the quartet tasked with that job.
And the scale of the challenge became quickly apparent, with the presence and close control of Zohore complemented by Tomlin and Hoilett's pace and trickery.
Cardiff bossed the early stages of what would become a physical battle throughout, allowing the visitors the bulk of possession. That almost immediately paid off, Zohore turning home Joe Bennett's cross at the back post, only to see the assistant referee's flag raised for offside.
Not that Albion's defence failed to stand up to the test set by a versatile visiting attack.
Warnock picked up where he left off in a successful summer run of games and Mousinho looked more comfortable at full-back than he did late in pre-season.
Buxton and McFadzean, meanwhile, proved equal to the aerial battles, even if there was the odd slip indicative of a lack of competitive game-time.
McFadzean was booked only four minutes in when cynically bringing down Zohore after giving the ball away, although he was brilliantly on hand to dive in front of the same player when he slipped easily past Buxton moments later.
It was going to be no surprise when Zohore eventually got the winner, such was his impact in the early stages, latching onto Tomlin's clever through-ball and powering it just wide.
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But this was a game - for an hour, at least - that could not decide which way it was going. Just as it looked that a Cardiff opener was inevitable, Albion seized the initiative and pinned their visitors back with a period of dominance.
Sordell and Dyer were regular outlets on the wing, with both beating opposite numbers Bennett and Lee Peltier respectively on a couple of occasions and forcing a series of corners.
Some of Burton's best football, though, came in the tight midfield spaces, Lund, Murphy and Irvine all linking up well in a manner that offers Brewers fans real encouragement.
One such move allowed Sordell to slide Irvine through a gap between the irrepressible Sol Bamba and Bruno Ecuele Manga. The Australian international may have been able to lay a pass on for Lund to go clear, but he elected to shoot from distance instead and lifted it over Neil Etheridge's crossbar.
Moments later, a better chance presented itself to the hosts, when Dyer showed that familiar burst of electric pace down the Pirelli left and got to the byline, before cutting the ball back across goal in the direction of Sordell.
The ex-Coventry City man was under pressure from his marker, but he would still have hoped to do better than mishit a shot into his own leg and wide, with a goal there for the taking.
Ultimately, this game would provide a stark contrast to Albion's opener 12 months previously, when they were beaten 4-3 at Nottingham Forest in a game that might have reached double figures.
Perhaps unsurprisingly against a Bluebirds side with such size and physical prowess in their number, this clash was more of an arm-wrestle for possession and territory, a case of seeing which outfit would blink first.
That is not something Clough's Burton do too often. A resilience from back to front was what they built their successful survival bid around in the second half of last term - and the defensive unit dealt well with Cardiff's direct approach for much of the second 45 at the Pirelli.
Murphy cleared up anything around the edge of the box, while Stephen Bywater again proved his quality when called upon, twice denying Zohore at the near post and then reacting superbly to keep Bamba's effort out from a corner with his face.
But as the match wore on, Albion found themselves pushed deeper and deeper, even after a muted penalty shout from Dyer went unrewarded as he went down under pressure from Peltier.
With three points there for the taking for either side, ex-Burton boss Warnock turned to options off the bench, Nathaniel Mendez-Laing - a former Rochdale teammate of Lund - Loic Damour and Danny Ward combining to pose a different, pacier threat in front of the home defence.
Still, the Albion defence - boasting a fair bit of Championship experience in its ranks this term - looked set to hold firm.
They had not reckoned on that one decisive moment of quality from Zohore, though. While the substitutes dragged the Burton defence around, it was the man who had looked a danger all afternoon long who found enough space to bend a fine effort past Bywater and finally break the Brewers rearguard.
They had come so close to passing the first test of the campaign, and one that Clough knows they will face plenty more times in the next nine months.
Instead, they were left with that all too familiar feeling of a late goal going against them.
They have four games in the next 12 days in all competitions to get that out of the system and build on a promising opening 45.
