At Bruce Stadium late on Saturday night, there was one of the moments when sport quite literally takes your breath away.
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The final hooter had sounded six minutes previously in the quarter-final sudden-death match between the ACT Brumbies and the Wellington Hurricanes.
The Kiwi team had assaulted the Brumbies' try line in wave after wave.
A penalty kick was not going to yield the Hurricanes a winning score; they had to cross for a try.
It was old-fashioned pick-and-grind, slam-and-hold rugby, one team determined to ground the ball over the try line, the home side fierce in its desperation to hold them back.
After wave after wave was rebuffed, All Blacks loose forward Ardie Savea, 95 kilograms of raw power, hugged the ball, pumped his legs and surged over, using all his upper-body weight to slam the ball down just over the white paint.
But hang on ...
Had he nailed it? Or by a sporting miracle had a Brumby player's arm somehow - almost magically - slid under the ball and kept it suspended, just centimetres from the turf?
It came down to one last referee call.
On-field referee Nic Berry, who had copped repeated sprays from the very vocal crowd throughout the game, referred the decision "upstairs" to the TMO (television match official).
Replays were shown time and again.
The 8000-strong crowd didn't know how to react as the seconds dragged on.
Knuckles were chewed, expensive beers ignored, and yellow beanies dragged from heads and wrung like dishcloths. Some fans couldn't even look.
It was rugby as the most riveting theatre, as spell-binding drama, and unfolding in front of us.
"I can't watch; tell me what happens!" a voice behind us yelled.
Savea, an extraordinary, world-class player by any measure, celebrated mightily with his Kiwi team. He thought he'd sealed it.
The Brumbies players were upbeat; they too, thought they'd saved the game - but their celebrations seemed tempered with just a dash of uncertainty.
Which way would the call go?
Tick, tick, tick. One review, then another, then another.
Finally the ref took his finger from his earpiece, raised two hands horizontally and called "held up".
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Then came that curious moment, that heartbeat in time when a crowd's collective breath is expelled all at once, when nano-seconds of extraordinary emotional tension is released and flips into total exuberance.
Fans tell a story of such a similar breathless, suspended sporting moment when AFL legend Tony Lockett, his groin torn and his famous accuracy hideously uncertain, launched a long, hopeful kick goalward after the final siren in the tied 1996 preliminary final against Essendon.
The Swans needed a score - any score - to win and get into the grand final.
From the moment the ball left his boot, it was like a giant vacuum tube had sucked all the air from the SCG.
Thousands of eyes watched, spellbound, as an inflated piece of red leather tumbled through the air. It crossed through for a point, the Swans were home, and joy was unleashed.
For those lucky enough to be there, in the crowd: treasure those breathless moments. Because sport is never more compelling.
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