AS THE sun sets on Wellington on Saturday, Carlton will be either breathing a sigh of relief or be even further in crisis.

A loss to the Nick Riewoldt-less St Kilda and it will be a very long flight home – leaving New Zealand in the hours after the game – for the Blues, and especially coach Mick Malthouse.

Just a week out from breaking the all-time AFL coaching record, Malthouse and the Blues could be in the same 0-4 position they found themselves in at this stage last season.

After losing to Port Adelaide, Richmond, Essendon and the lowly Melbourne – who had already gone down to St Kilda, West Coast and Greater Western Sydney - in the opening rounds last year, Malthouse backed his experience to guide his team out of the club's worst start to a season in 25 years. Still, the pressure mounted.

"If the blowtorch comes on it comes on … I hope it comes on me and not my players. It can come on me all it likes," Malthouse said after the Demons defeated them by 23 points on April 12.

"I don't like doing any pump-ups, but my last seven years in AFL football have been all in finals.

"So the game hasn't changed dramatically in the space of six months. Seven years is seven years of getting sides in finals.

"I'm not going to start second guessing myself because all of a sudden we're zip and four.

"There's no hiding that, but it doesn't mean I've lost faith in myself."

Even so, that pressure escalated further after the loss to the Demons. Players were stopped by the press as they arrived at the club. The websites and papers were filled with news of the Blues' crisis.

Malthouse went on Channel 9's Footy Classified for what was a wide-ranging interview that covered everything from whether he was the right man to take the club out of its slump, to if he over-estimated the strength of the list, to his stress levels when he left Collingwood.

Then, the blowtorch backed off as the Blues won four of their next five games.

While they haven't lost to the Saints yet – and will enter as favourites – that familiar heat is back.

The club's president, Mark LoGiudice, may have guaranteed Malthouse will at least see out his current contract, regardless of what happens this season, but wider questions surrounding the coaching legend's long-term future remain.

The CEO, Steven Trigg, said Malthouse deserved respect – and had it at Carlton – but not before he publicly questioned whether the veteran coach had the energy to keep going with the Blues' rebuild beyond this year.

Malthouse didn't second guess himself when the Blues slid into four straight losses in the first month of last season, and his captain isn't ready to do that this time around either.

Marc Murphy was emphatic in his support for the coach on Friday in Wellington, stating the three-time premiership coach was exactly where he needed to be.

"From my point of view I'm right behind Mick, just like the players are," Murphy said. "He's a great coach, and I wouldn't have anyone else coaching our club at the moment.

"He's great for the boys and the club, I wouldn't have it any other way."

Murphy described the past few weeks as "interesting", with the players unable to open the papers or turn on the TV or radio without hearing something about Malthouse. In Malthouse's eyes, this is the distraction he was desperate to avoid – the one that will affect his assistant coaches and players, and the one he predicted would happen in an interview that aired on April 5.

"Everyone will say 'It won't be a distraction to the players', but it will be," he said. "I've been through this at Collingwood and I know that it will be a distraction.

"It's up to us as a coaching panel to lessen that."

Murphy said the players don't listen to the media and believed Malthouse was staying positive.

But, the experienced coach agreed in a recent radio interview he had been disrespected by some comments made in the media as his record-breaking achievement approached. He also highlighted the personal toll the scrutiny on his future was taking on his family, in particular his wife Nanette who had been reduced to tears by some of the things said.

The word ‘rebuilding’ has been thrown around; the club says it is, even though Malthouse wasn't appointed in 2012 to oversee that, and the captain says the players aren't concerned about the notion of starting again.

Andrew Walker said after the fourth loss last year that "yuk feeling" from previous disappointing season-starts had returned to the team.

And now, the Blues are facing the prospect of another 0-4 start and another injection of "yuk feeling" – with no Chris Judd, Chris Yarran or Dale Thomas in the team set to face the Saints.

But this time around, the stakes seem much higher given everything that's been said in a tumultuous – and distracting - few months. Put simply, a loss on Anzac Day will make the 2575km between Wellington and Melbourne feel like 10,000 as the Blues fly home and work out what happens next.