Knowing he had the safety of the play-on advantage, Nabuliwaqe shrugged off one upper body tackle and then somehow survived two diving hits from the chasing loose forwards on his sideways progression behind his own posts.
A fend on South Canterbury first-five Jason Merett, and the winger was suddenly out of the in-goal and linking with Waqanibau.
Much has been made this season of the former Fijian under-20 international's silky offload skills, but in the next 20 seconds Waqanibau would reach his opus.
He met a tackle and threw the inside ball, basketball style, to centre Spooner-Neera who, running at pace but still in his 22m, decided getting out of Dodge was the best option.
Here came a moment of luck - into the heavy breeze, his clearing kick held up near halfway as Wanganui's three Fijians all flew at it.
The high-bouncing ball evaded South Canterbury winger Rupeni Cokanasiga and fullback Paula Fifita to return lovingly to Nabuliwaqe's hands.
In a blur, he fed Kubunavanua, who made a half-step before linking with Waqanibau, who as he was hit simultaneously from two panicking Cantabrians made another classic one-handed pass back to Nabuliwaqe.
The winger swept into South Canterbury's 22m before throwing yet another basketball pass, away from Cokanasiga, into Waqanibau - proving the testament of never giving up, as he had now twice shrugged off tacklers to rejoin the movement.
Drawing in centre Jared Matthews, Waqanibau stepped twice then offered Kubunavanua a looming tryline with nothing in front of him.
The only downside to this moment was Kubunavanua's anger at the somewhat late tackle from Cokanasiga but, after the men's hands were extracted from each other's jerseys, Wanganui's Fijian flyers were able to celebrate their amazing accomplishment.
Backs coach Jason Hamlin, responsible for harnessing these players while getting them to make smart decisions after a season where half chances produced either thrilling tries or howling errors, could not have been more proud.
"The biggest telling factor in all of that was the tryline defence."
Feeling at half-time that Wanganui had been "too tight" with South Canterbury, attacking close to the maul, Hamlin said the team needed to move the ball into more space out wide - yet Nabuliwaqe, Waqanibau and Kubunavanua took that advice to the Nth degree.
"That must have been soul destroying [for South Canterbury]."
Both head coach Jason Caskey and captain Peter Rowe were asked, with their combined decades of experience in Heartland rugby, if they had ever seen a try like it.
Their responses were stark - "no" and "never".
"Michael looked like a slot ball machine," said Caskey.
He called it a 14-point try, given South Canterbury had conceded the unlikeliest of seven pointers when they were a heartbeat from crossing themselves to retake the lead.
"It was so good to have it happen to you and not against you.
"It would have rocked them, they were so close to scoring a try.
"You're a South Canterbury forward and you've got your team down there, and then you pop your head [out of the ruck] and it's gone the other way."
Rowe said he went from wanting to kick the effervescent Nabuliwaqe for not going to ground, to wanting to kiss him as they dashed away.
He was still worried when referee Liam Scanlon called an end to the knock-on advantage around the time of Spooner-Neera's kick, but moments later he had a front row seat to history as he followed after the three Fijian bolters.
"It broke it open with Michael not putting the ball down and having a crack," Rowe said.
"What that shows is what the boys have got. The belief they've got - I can't describe it."
The video has been doing the rounds on social media - with three versions on the Wanganui Chronicle Facebook page.
