In rugby, 48-35 is an excellent score, but not so much when you're dealing with a leadership vote.

Yes, Malcolm Turnbull got the 48 and therefore won it. But did he really win anything?

Bill English when they put the National Party leadership post Key to a vote, got all the votes. Jacinda Ardern got all the support.

Malcolm Turnbull won by 13, he's got 35 problems.

Or to look at it another way he's got 35 collective problems, which amounts to a massive headache.

He looks weakened, he runs a divided party and a split caucus.

Unlike sport, where the people who got the 35 go away and accept they lost, the 35 in Canberra look to plot their next move.

They don't go "oh well, Dutton was our best shot. Never mind let's all toe the line and make the most of it."

In fact, in many respects, the 35 will see themselves as quite a sizeable, and effective grouping that can wreak havoc on the place.

Until you get a vote like we had yesterday, a lot of the time you never really know who your supporters are and how many they number.

Yes, you might have got a verbal on the phone, but until it's in votes on the floor of the party room, you are flying at least partially blind.

Turnbull, by the way, did the right thing. He called it, brought it to a head, presumably suspecting Dutton hadn't quite gathered the numbers.

And in winning, potentially splits at least a few of the 35 who might not have been willing to hang around for another go.

But in the big picture, very few survive.

Helen Clark is a good example of one that did. Cullen and co went to see her when the polls were at 8 percent, he stared them down and went on to a very prosperous time.

Slightly different circumstances, but John Howard too knew very dark days, but gained a 4th term when he resurrected his fortunes by stopping the refugee boats.

But you get the sense Turnbull isn't in for the same result.

The sadness is for him is a lot in Australia is actually going well right now. But the usual ticket to success, a good economy, isn't working for him.

And that at least in part is because he's too soft, too liberal to be a liberal, or at least a proper one.

Which is why Labour is doing well. They are rabble and Shorten is useless.

Yet despite that, because of the liberal's plight, and Turnbull being so left, the gap between him and Shorten isn't actually that great anymore.

They're leading the polls and you'd have to say, under the system they run, are odds-on favourites for the election whenever that’s held.

It's not over till it’s over of course, but 48-35, is as much as a nightmare as it is a win.