Otago's massive win over Southland on Saturday night was the third-largest winning margin recorded by the province since the game went professional.
The home side chalked up a 61-7 victory over Southland at Forsyth Barr Stadium on Saturday night, scoring eight tries to one in what was the biggest winning margin recorded between the two teams.
Otago led 39-7 at the break and, if had not missed a couple of opportunities in the second half, it could have scored more than the eight tries it managed.
No-one had seen the result coming.
The previous five games between the two teams had had little between them.
Otago won last year's game33-22 in Invercargill, but the four games before that the average winning margin was just under five points.
Otago blew that statistic out of the water on Saturday with a resounding victory.
The side's biggest margin since it went professional was in 1998 when a rampant Otago side, stacked with All Blacks, beat Northland 84-10 at Carisbrook.
A week later it served up a similar scoreline, this time against Wellington, winning 82-10.
Since then Otago has played 195 matches with various victories and defeats but none by the margin it enjoyed on Saturday under the roof.
The last time it racked up 60 points or more was in in September, 2003, when it beat Northland 65-24 in Whangarei, scoring nine tries in the process.
It was actually Otago's first win over Southland at home since 2004 and the first win by the home side in fixtures between the two teams for five years.
Peter Breen's 26 points was a big contribution to the win, although it was well short of the Otago record set by Paul Turner, who lodged 39 points against East Coast in 1986.
The last player to score as many points for Otago in a competitive match was first five-eighth Hayden Parker, who scored 26 points for Otago in its win over Northland in 2012.
The match was also noteworthy as there were just six current Highlanders on the field from the two teams.
This is a far cry from the early days of professional rugby when Highlanders from both Otago and Southland dominated their provincial teams.
In 1998, when Otago and Southland clashed, 19 Highlanders started for the two teams.
