"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.
