The Otago Daily Times counts down the 150 greatest moments in Otago sport.
No 63: Rugby's first extra time (1992)
Otago met North Harbour in the first year of the playoffs in the national provincial championship in 1992.
The year before, under Laurie Mains, Otago had won the title but there were no finals.
The next year the administrators decided to have a finals system and Otago got through to the semifinals, after finishing second in the round robin.
It drew North Harbour in the semifinal, to be played at Carisbrook on a Sunday afternoon.
Otago, with the home advantage, started out like a house on fire and led 13-3 at the break, courtesy of a Paul Cooke try, the boot of Greg Cooper and a rare John Timu drop goal.
But North Harbour came back and it took a Cooper penalty from the sideline to tie the scores at 16-16 at the end of 80 minutes.
Ten minutes of extra time was to be played and North Harbour drew first blood, after Frank Bunce made a break and halfback Ant Strachan scampered over.
Cooper then kicked a tough penalty just before the two teams turned round to play the second period of extra time.
Otago simply grew another leg and swung on to attack.
After hooker David Latta hit the ball up, it went wide to Timu, who gave Cooper some room and he scampered over in the corner.
The Otago fullback then put the difficult conversion between the sticks and Otago was ahead 26-23. North Harbour tried to fight back but was denied by defiant Otago defence.
Otago went on to the final but left all its energy at Carisbrook and was beaten 40-5 by a rampant Waikato team in Hamilton.
