New Zealand's finest exponent of the dropped goal, South Canterbury first five-eighths Barry Fairbrother believes the mindset around that scoring option could see him retain his record for a while yet.
He sits on 61 dropped goals landed during his 118-game career, largely in the second division of the original national provincial championship format, for the Timaru-based side and for who he scored 1076 points between 1981-1992.
Introducing the golden point option for the Super Rugby Aotearoa competition has placed new emphasis on the dropped goal in New Zealand rugby but it will be some time before Fairbrother's record is challenged.
It is a form of scoring that has gone out of fashion in the New Zealand game with the emphasis having been directed towards scoring tries.
Crusaders' assistant coach Scott Hansen confirmed that view when asked on Wednesday if the Super Rugby champions had been working on their dropped goals set-up in preparation for the return to competition in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
He said while they had talked with individual players they hadn't done any work as a team.
His view was typical of many, and there have been times in recent years when fans at games have met dropped goal attempts with a chorus of boos.
They didn't seem to mind too much when ace five-eighths Dan Carter slipped over rare goals himself, during the 2015 World Cup semi-final (against South Africa) and the final against Australia.
That was a far cry from the infamous game against France at the 2007 Rugby World Cup in their Cardiff when with time running out they tried only once, and then dreadfully, to secure a win, losing instead 18-20.
Despite all the antipathy towards it, the dropped goal is a legitimate form of scoring and an art in itself.
Fairbrother, now living in South Canterbury, and having ended his connection with the game after playing and coaching, said the golden point would create an ending to a game which might otherwise feel flat with a drawn result.
"I still think the dropped goal is a weapon but it seems like it is seen as a weakness when you resort to it so that's a bit of a shame," he said.
Fairbrother said he always saw the dropped goal as a way of accumulating points.
"If you could get down there and you had an easy opportunity to accumulate points then you took it, that's why I executed it a bit I suppose," he said.
The set-up for dropped goals wasn't something the South Canterbury side practised, they just took it as it came.
He said under the laws of the day, there was also a chance from an indirect free-kick where a player, usually a halfback, could tap the ball and pass it to a player who attempted a dropped goal.
Fairbrother said dropped goals were not something he practised a lot.
"A lot of it was just instinct. If you were set there and you were practising it that means you were thinking more about it and it wasn't quite the same and it was unnatural whereas in a game the ball would come back and it would just flow so it was more reactional," he said.
While he had won a few games with dropped goals, he said it was more taking chances during games when in the right situation because it was a lift for his side while demoralising for an opponent.
"The emphasis now is on scoring tries to create TV coverage and more excitement, whereas back in our time, we were more focused on winning the game," he said.
Fairbrother said while the situation in Cardiff had been frustrating, he looked more recently at the 36-34 loss to South Africa in Wellington in 2018 as an obvious example.
"They had the perfect opportunity to snap a dropped goal over and win that game and they tried to score a try, and cocked it up. Everyone was ranting up and down, why didn't they go for it and a player said they made the right choice.
"That was a clear case where getting a try was more important than winning a game," he said.
While Dan Carter has signalled a return to first-class play in New Zealand, he would never be able to claim the dropped goal record.
In his international career, Carter, who holds the world record for points scored by an individual with 1598, kicked only eight dropped goals, and in his first-class career for 3683 points, landed only another 11.
Fairbrother's haul puts him ahead of:
Andrew Mehrtens (Canterbury, Crusaders, New Zealand) 54,
Murray Roulston (Mid Canterbury, South Island) 50,
Grant Fox (Auckland, Blues, New Zealand, NZ Universities, NZ Colts, NZ Juniors, North Zone) 47,
Mack Herewini (Auckland, North Island, New Zealand, Maori All Blacks, Northern Maori) 47,
Ron Preston (Bay of Plenty, NZ Juniors, Maori All Blacks, Northern Maori) 39,
John Boe (Waikato) 37,
Ross Brown (Taranaki, New Zealand, NZ Juniors, North Island) 35,
Paul Martin (Taranaki, Southern Maori) 34,
Brian McKechnie (Southland, South Island, New Zealand) 33,
Eddie Dunn (Northland, North Island, New Zealand, NZ Colts, Maori All Blacks, Northern Maori) 32,
Dave Trevathan (Otago, Southland, South Island, New Zealand) 31.