Yesterday, another mistake-ridden encounter was served up by the teams, and once again, rather luckily, Otago came out on top, clinching the result with the last kick of the match.
Otago won 19-16 after the sides had kicked three penalties apiece in the first half.
The game could have gone either way and Tasman, which has never beaten Otago, had the lion's share of possession and territory.
But it was plain and simply not good enough to finish off the chances it created, and Otago's defence scrambled well and turned over ball to disrupt the home side's attack.
Otago did its best to lose, and once again had little ball and territory. It also made far too many handling errors for a first-class side, and tended to be one-dimensional in attack off the rucks.
But it won, and though it has a very outside chance of making the final of the championship, it sits on a 50% win record, with two games left in the season.
Otago co-coach Andy Hunter praised his side's defence, saying it managed to stop Tasman running around for most of the game.
"We made the tackles that we needed to. Tasman are a good side who have knocked over some good teams this year, so we knew we had to be strong," Hunter said.
"They are the sort of side which likes broken play and create things out of nothing. So we had to be constructive and stop them running. For the most part, I think we did that.
"We didn't want the game to open up and so we were pretty direct with them, wanting to go through the middle ... when it was on, we wanted to look to move it wide but perhaps we didn't always do that."
Hunter said the direct type of play always opened up the possibility of spilt ball and forwards getting in each other's way, which did happen.
Winger Joe Hill, who had his best defensive game for Otago, was assisted from the field about midway through the second half, after he took a nasty late hit from replacement Tasman forward Riki Hoeata.
Hill could not get any oxygen into his lungs and blacked out, Hunter said. Hoeata was likely to answer to the judiciary about the hit.
Hill's fellow winger Buxton Popoali'i had broken the game open 13 minutes into the second half with a tidy try.
The ball came to centre Ben Atiga,who popped a nice pass to fullback Ben Smith, and Popoali'i was released with nothing in front of him and his speed did the rest.
That put Otago out to a 16-9 lead after Tasman had totally dominated the first 10 minutes of the second half, twice being pushed out in the corner when going for tries.
But it finally crossed with 13 minutes to go, when Hoeata smashed over after Tasman took a quick penalty tap.
Tasman appeared to be getting a roll on, but Otago stood firm and from a turnover, the ball went to Popoali'i and he was lowered just short. Otago kept driving for the line and eventually referee Matt Muir found a penalty for a Tasman offside. Glenn Dickson slotted the kick from straight in front and the game was over.
The first half had rather bumbled along, with neither side fashioning any continuity into its game and Otago making too many errors.
Best in the 80 minutes for Otago were Popoali'i and prop Kees Meeuws while hooker Liam Coltman never stopped.
Otago was to fly home last night and prepare to take on Canterbury in its first game at Forsyth Barr Stadium next Saturday.
The scores -
Otago v Tasman
• Otago 19
Buxton Popoali'i try, Glenn Dickson 4 pen, con
• Tasman 16
Riki Hoeata try, Andrew Goodman 3 pen, con
• Halftime: 9-9.
