It took a while and ended in seconds as the Te Matau a Maui Hawke's Bay Maori beat Hawke's Bay Samoa 26-25 with a last-second try at Farndon Park, Clive, on Saturday.
With the intervention of Covid-19, neither unit had fielded a team in the past three years, and the Maori looked well out of the match down 15-0 at halftime, with the sun at their backs, and then 20-0 soon afterwards and having conceded four tries.
It was ultimately the Samoans' failure to land any goals from their eventual five tries that made the difference as the Maori made the best of some isolated raids into the opposition territory, facing the sun, to score four tries at the shady end, three of them converted.
It had been 25-7 with 20 minutes to go, and Te Matau a Maui, having had their first scheduled match cancelled a week earlier and playing the first of a remaining five games reviving the Hawke's Bay Maori rugby kaupapa this season, took the lead for the first time and won the game only when lock Pauro Erkell crashed through the defence on fulltime.
The other Maori tries were scored by centre Nathan Ramsey, flanker Ziah Taumoepeau, wing Tipene Meihana, with conversions added by fullback Tianu Poto (2) and first five-eighths Jayden Falcon.