As Leinster and the Sharks were trading tries at the RDS on Saturday, it was hard not to be greedy and hope their paths cross again at the business end of the season.
The prospect of a Champions Cup or BKT United Rugby Championship knock-out game between the pair, with both sides fully stacked, is one most neutrals can only hope for.
Even without their seven Springbok regulars, the Durban side caused Leinster real problems for the opening hour of their Round 4 meeting, until the international experience and depth of Leinster's squad paid dividends in the final quarter.
The Sharks, and their fellow South African teams, have started the season in a similar fashion to how they ended it, and have showed they're adapted to the travel and style of rugby in the northern hemisphere.
They're proving to be a decent draw too, with just under 17,000 at the RDS on Saturday to watch the likes of Aphelele Fassi, Werner Kok, Thaakir Abrahams and Ben Tapuai carve up Leinster's defence on multiple occasions.
"I think that's what the crowd want to see - all action performances," said Leinster head coach Leo Cullen after the 54-34 win.
"A huge amount of work goes into the refereeing of the game and refs are under a lot of pressure, but I think that's the game you want to see.
"Last week it was very difficult with the conditions in Ravenhill so when you get a nice day like today you want to see a good entertaining game and get people to come back and watch it again."
After years of Ireland's provinces dominating the competition, the Bulls and Stormers broke up the monopoly last season, while the early stages of the new campaign would indicate the Sharks and Lions will be right up in the playoff mix this year.
"It is great to see this type of test now," Cullen added.
"It's a proper competition, a proper test, they have to go through Europe [Champions and Challenge Cups] now as well which they did not have to do last year.
"If you think back to the start of the season last year, they were coming up to Europe and not going particularly well. Every trip they do, they are getting better and better, the familiarity. We only do one trip going down to South Africa so it is a totally different experience for the South African teams coming up here; they get better with the trips.
"When you are in South Africa, it is the number one game in terms of where rugby sits as a team sport when you compare it to soccer, Gaelic football and hurling, whereas it's one, two, three and four down there. They live and breathe it.
"You can see some of the size profile, the speed profile, the skill, jackalers over the ball, some of the front rowers that they have, it is a proper challenge."
Leinster's focus will stay in Ireland for the coming weeks though, with Interpros against Connacht and Munster in consecutive weeks.
Cullen expects to be without his Emerging Ireland contingent once again this week, due to a short turnaround from Sunday to Friday, while Jordan Larmour almost certainly been ruled out after suffering an ankle injury on Saturday.
"It's two derby games we're looking at now, away in Connacht on Friday, which is always a tough place to go.
"We played them a couple of times in Galway last year. The European game in particular, you had two sets of players with everything on the line.
"They had a good win last night and will take a lot of confidence from that, we'll have to put in a decent week's prep on what is a short week."
