So imagine the shock of the South Westland players as they were jogging back to halfway when the referee checked his ever reliable watch and blew fulltime.
That's 4.20pm, remember, after a game including a 10 minute halftime break and a couple of injury stoppages.
A colleague of mine from the Grey Valley Young Farmers was in no doubt the official had either screwed up or forgot to stop his watch at some point - the young reserve had just finished his warmups and been told by his South Westland coach to take the field for the last seven minutes plus injury time.
And, as Mr Hopkins has oft suggested in his columns, did the said official wish to explain his thought-making process to the captains?
It's hard to tell from the way he jogged to the changing room, grabbed his bag, and then increased his pace into a dead sprint towards his car and booted it north on State Highway 6.
While a referee "cannot officially alter any of his decisions", the furious locals could have at least got some justice from taking down the licence plate number.
Said official was doing at least 95km/h before he cleared the 50km speed area.
In the return game up in Greymouth later that year, South Westland again went close only for Blaketown to be just ahead at the fulltime whistle.
In a funny postscript, the old mechanisms inside Rugby Park's scoreboard clock had been running slow for a few weeks, so the travelling supporters hit the grandstand roof when the fulltime was blown with "two minutes" remaining, thinking they'd been screwed yet again.
I knew about the clock problem ahead of time, and the referee, a different official, along with both touch judges, made sure to call me over and show me their wrist watches to confirm 80 minutes had indeed elapsed.
Groups of death
Digging up the rugby past can be a lot of fun, as your Wanganui Chronicle sports editor found himself doing a little unofficial editing on the pages of resource website Wikipedia.
You will have seen in news bulletins the baffling decision by World Rugby to start putting their sums together three years before the 2015 Rugby World Cup tournament.
As a result, the competition's Pool A now includes Australia, a team currently ranked third in world, up against England (4th), Wales (6th) and Fiji (9th).
Two teams will not be adding to their consistent history of making RWC quarter-finals and it makes the playoff stages for everyone else highly unpredictable.
But someone, possibly a Canadian rugby tragic, had to be pulling the leg when you visited Wikipedia's "Group of Death" page and read that it listed Pool A of the 1995 World Cup as another example.
Hosts South Africa faced the Aussies ... and Canada and Romania.
Somewhat obvious as to which two teams would advance there.
Anyone who actually knew their footy is aware Pool B was 1995's death group - England, Western Samoa, Italy and Argentina.
Bottom of the table Argentina lost each of their three matches by only six points, while Italy came within a converted try of drawing with England.
The rules for "unprotected" pages allow any Wikipedia user to make alterations "and improve articles immediately for all readers", so you better believe I courted the opportunity.
Refuse to lose
I take note of the recent success of Wanganui Collegiate's Christian Conder in being included in his school's new high performance programme after being named in the New Zealand team for the ISF World Schools Cross Country championships next April.
Conder is responsible for one of the most exciting race finishes I've ever seen in person when I witnessed the NZSSA road race championships in Wanganui last December.
Competing in the senior boys 6km race, Conder was run down and passed inside the final 100m to lose third place, but then gritted his teeth and pulled off the rarest of sights in foot racing - regaining a lost place inside the final sprint to the line.
Pure determination, Conder collapsed at the finish line and I had to wait a couple of minutes before I could interview him to allow the teenager to collect his breath and his thoughts.
You could watch a hundred competitive-level races and not see something like that happen live in front of you.
The classic example is the mighty Welshman Steve Jones, who in 1983 was stalked over the final three laps of a 10,000m race in Brussels by Tanzania's Gidamis Shahanga.
Shahanga powered past Jones with 115m to go, but the indomitable Jones willed himself to stay on the inside and retake the lead with 20m left to win by about three lengths.
Heart. You can't teach it.
