Let's hope not, but could it be another 56 years before Otago regains the Ranfurly Shield? Rugby writer Steve Hepburn considers what the game might look like in 2070.
Rules
Rugby started in 1823, and you can expect the rules (or the laws, for the pedants) to remain as clear as mud some 247 years later.
The scrums will still collapse, the breakdown will still be a total mess, and feeds into scrums will continue to be crooked.
Props from the Crusaders will remain getting yellow-carded. And Steve Walsh, at age 108, will still be penalising the Highlanders.
Competition structure
The Super rugby competition will have morphed into the Super 33.
The latest entrant will be from North Korea.
Sure, the country has no rugby tradition, is still run by a madman and half the citizens eat grass, but stuck in sporting isolation, all the North Koreans will be watching the Pyongyang Potato-peelers.
And after all, the competition is all about viewers.
The ITM Cup will have a two-week playing window in late November.
Coaching
There will be about 25 coaches per team.
There will be a scrum coach, a set-piece coach, a rake coach, a defensive coach and a throwing coach.
And that is just for the front row - for a school team.
Coaches will then moan about players not being able to make decisions on the field.
Technology
There will be cameras on players, referees, coaches, water boys, the match ball, car park attendants and the bus to the ground.
Even on the game.
There will be statistics for who has kept the best statistics of the teams.
All games will be played under a plastic roof and people will still write to the Otago Daily Times criticising the stadium.
Boots will be made of a lightweight alloy based on Nasa technology and will be tied together through a satellite.
A special gel will help players hang on to the ball. But players will still drop it. And still fall over. And still miss kicks.
School
First XV coaches will be hunting through kindergartens, signing up players.
The really serious ones will be seen walking the halls of maternity hospitals.
Some school teams will have two hectares of fields covered for indoor training and have a 5000sq m gym.
But the schools will keep saying they spend no more on rugby than they did 50 years ago.
Just like players do not come to the school only for rugby.
