While harnessing the expressive capacity of monochromatic grey was an impressive skill of Tapper's, he also revelled in the liberal use of colour. This is clearly so in Rugby Players, East Coast, where clarity of palette has been replaced by an emergent quasi-cubist chaos, and spatial logic abandoned. A Ruatoria match plays out in full force, with monumental figures physically clashing. Though pictured as hulking and in motion, the players appear to each be looking in different directions, almost arrested in mid-air by their thoughts. Throughout his career Garth Tapper developed aspects of both cubism and formal realism in his work. The application of these different styles is reflected in these two paintings. However, it was the artist's choice of subject matter and his ability to capture cultural snapshots and insights into New Zealand life which set his work apart. Tapper excelled in capturing the essence and energy of his subjects, weather it be sports matches, get-to-gethers at the local pub, the drama of the law courts or scenes from rural life, he had the ability to go to the heart of the matter, instilling his work with an enduring sense of nationally resonant truth.