Ben Lam is the latest in a long and distinguished list of players thriving after leaving the Blues, and with 12 tries in nine matches, the odds are short that he will continue his attacking mayhem when he runs on to Eden Park with the Hurricanes tomorrow.
The 26-year-old's formis such that he is being talked about as a bolter for the All Blacks.
It's talk which will be nice to hear, but more important for him is that his 1.94m, 105kg frame - full of the power and fast-twitch fibres that saw him break 11 seconds for 100m as a schoolboy - is allowing him to impress.
He said in a recent Stuff interview: "It's a relief more than anything for me to show that I can do what I know I can do."
Lam hasn't always had such luck. He played six matches for the Blues - one in 2012 under coach and uncle Pat Lam, and five in 2015 under John Kirwan - but his run there was hampered by injury and a lingering suspicion that he might not be tough enough for Super Rugby level.
There has never been any doubt about his talent at sevens - he won silver along with his teammates at the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games - and now, finally, he is proving that he has what it takes in 15s too.
Lam is scoring for fun - he scored a hat-trick of tries against the Lions in Wellington last weekend - against quality, international, defences.
He is fit, which is helping his confidence, and he is getting an extended run of game time as a result, which is helping his try-scoring rate, which in turn is helping his confidence. It's a virtuous yellow-and-black-blurred circle.
For the Hurricanes, it's all adding up to a significant strike force on the left wing, one that the Blues know a bit about.
"It's probably not surprising," Blues coach Tana Umaga said this week of Lam's form. "It's always been in Ben – it was just a matter of when it was going to come out, I suppose, and this is the year.
"Obviously we understand he's been part of our programme. He's been playing professional rugby for a while now… he's showing the potential that he's always had."
Blues winger Rieko Ioane. Photo / Getty
Rieko Ioane, World Rugby's international breakout player of the year in 2017 and a player who knows a thing or two about scoring tries, has moved to the right wing to in a bid to keep Lam in check tomorrow.
It has the makings of an explosive clash. Ioane is perhaps better known for his own try-scoring exploits - he scored a hat-trick of tries for the Blues in a match at the start of last season and has scored 11 tries in 13 tests, including two against the British & Irish Lions at Eden Park last year - but is also maturing into a very good defender.
Umaga said: "They are two star players on the same side of the field – who knows what could happen out there?"
The major reason behind Lam's success in Wellington, where he is in the final year of a marine science and geography degree, is that he is injury-free.
But a change of scene is probably helping too, just as it helped Malakai Fekitoa when he left Auckland for the Highlanders, and Waisake Naholo after he made the same move.
When he is not playing or training, he can often be found diving at Breaker Bay on the Miramar Peninsula next to the entrance to Wellington Harbour.
"It's really good being under water," he told Stuff. "You have your own thoughts and there's nothing else under there. Or hopefully not anything else under there."
Ben Lam's career at the Blues never really got going. Photo / Photosport
And he's in a book club with teammates Ardie Savea, Chris Eves and Blade Thomson.
"We're trying to read the same book and expand our learning and try and do things outside of rugby and take the focus away from rugby all the time," he told Stuff.
"So we all come up with one book and we decide a time when we're all free. It's still early days."
He feels at home in Wellington and looks it, too. The upshot is Lam has been rewarded with a contract extension which will keep him at the Hurricanes until the end of 2020 which means he has the potential to haunt the Blues and every other Super Rugby team for a fair while yet.
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