If last Friday evening in Apia was expat Whanganui prodigy Stephen Perofeta's debutant ball, then Wednesday night in front of over 40,000 spectators at Eden Park was his graduation party.
The 20-year-old had a night to remember as he took over running the cutter at No10 for the Blues intheir historic 22-16 win over the British & Irish Lions.
Despite having only one Super Rugby appearance to his name, coming off the bench for the last 30 minutes against the Reds in Samoa five days before, the former Collegiate 1st XV star was preferred by coach Tana Umaga to fill the first-five role ahead of Ihaia West, after Piers Francis departed to join the England team in Argentina.
"Ihaia hasn't played for a while and Stephen has been involved with us for the last two weeks so it is an opportunity for Stevie to step up and we think he is ready to do that," Umaga explained on Tuesday.
"I think his skill-set belies his age. He is only a young man.
"He could have been on the tour with New Zealand Under 20's but we kept him behind - obviously with losing Piers to England duties we wanted our 10s to be here."
On the biggest stage of his career so far, Perofeta delivered under pressure - starting with a brilliant cut out pass to give speedy winger Rieko Ioane all the space he needed to blitz in for the opening try in the seventh minute.
Minutes later, it was Perofeta sprinting across field and diving to reach Lions centre Jared Payne that prevented him from scoring in the corner as the TMO revealed Perofeta's tackle and dragged Payne's foot into touch.
The young man was slightly wayward with his early goal kicks, but this proved a virtue as he inadvertently set up the Blues' second try on halftime when his penalty attempt hit the post and Lion's winger Jack Nowell battered it back into his own in-goal - where Sonny Bill Williams dived through to score and give his first-five partner a much easy crack at kickable points.
With his team still up 12-10, Perofeta was replaced in the 51st minute by the more experienced Ihaia, who would have plenty of gas left in the tank when he was on the end of some brilliant offloads by flanker Steven Luatua and Williams to streak away and score the match-winner 74th minute try.
Having faced Jack Stratton and Peter Rowe in the NZ Provincial Barbarians and now Perofeta for the Blues, the Lions still have their toughest former Whanganui prospect to take on as City College old boy Waisake Naholo has been named in the All Blacks squad for the test series.
