Canterbury loosie Jed Brown was not even supposed to play but muscled over for a try with four minutes to play.
Moments later team-mate Richie Mo’unga kicked a penalty to seal a dramatic 30-24 win against Otago to keep the Ranfurly Shield in Canterbury.
The visitors put up a brave challenge in front of 7000 fans at AMI Stadium in Christchurch.
When Otago winger Jona Nareki regather a grubber kick and went on a 60m angled run to the try line, the texts starting rolling it.
‘‘It’s coming home,’’ one read.
But it was not to be.
Canterbury was every bit as gutsy as Otago was valiant in the Mitre 10 Cup clash.
Canterbury had been struck by a virus in the lead up to the match and coach Glenn Delaney was forced into making four changes to the game day squad.
For the Highlanders, prop Daniel Lienert-Brown injured himself during the warm-up and had to be replaced as well.
‘‘We knew it was going to be a hell of a challenge,’’ Delaney said.
‘‘We had a reasonable amount of disruption leading in, so there is quite a lot of resilience in our group which I really applaud them for.
‘‘The character of our guys shone through. To be quite fair, I think Otago put a hell of a challenge on.
‘‘They really challenged us to go very, very deep.’’
Brown got a heads up he might play after the captain’s run and ended up scoring what proved to be a critical try.
‘‘They had just scored a try and we talked about just holding the ball and being a bit more direct,’’ Brown said.
‘‘Toddy [Matt Todd] made a little break there and we just got a bit of a roll on. I thought I’d pick and go and was lucky enough to score the try.’’
The game was a stop-start affair in the opening half.
There were a lot of penalties and Mo’unga, whose running game was quite sensational from first five-eighth, opened the scoring with a penalty after about eight minutes.
But Otago struck back from a scrum on the 22. Tei Walden took the ball to the defensive line and flicked it back inside to Josh Ioane, who ran in to score.
Canterbury replied through a try to hooker Ben Funnell and led 8-5 at the break.
The game looked like it was slipping away from Otago with Canterbury scoring twice in the opening 10 minutes of the second spell.
The home team led 20-5 but winger Mitchell Scott grabbed an intercept try and the captain Sam Anderson-Heather drove over from a lineout close to the line.
Otago trailed 20-19 until that grubber defeated the unlucky Caleb Makene.
The fullback slipped over and Nareki sprinted past, scooped the ball up and made a brilliant run to the opposite corner.
And that is when the texts started.
In the other Mitre 10 Cup game yesterday, Manawatu upset Tasman 35-20. On Saturday, Wellington beat Taranaki 42-26 in the capital while Auckland prevailed 10-8 against Northland at Eden Park.
