He's filling the shoes of one of the best fullbacks in rugby but Andrew Kellaway is starting to find his feet in the Waratahs 15 jersey.
Kellaway slotted into the fullback spot, with Israel Folau's move to the centres and said it as a "weird" situation taking over from the Wallabies fullback.
"It's definitely weird to see arguably the best fullback in the world not playing fullback but again he's obviously a class centre," he said.
With Folau out on the field, though, Kellaway has a strong mentor as he works his way through a debut Super Rugby season.
"It's great for me to be able to be on the field with him and he's been great guiding me through a lot of the stuff you go through as a fullback, so it's great to be a part of his journey and my journey as well," he said.
A star on the rise, Kellaway enjoyed one of his best games at Super Rugby level in Tokyo, highlighted by his try right on halftime, in which he shook off three Sunwolves en route to a five-pointer.
"I've never done that before so I don't know where that one came from but it good, it was nice to score there," he said.
"We obviously spoke about going away with points before the half so it was nice to be able to do that."
The Waratahs' task doesn't get any easier in their race towards the finals, with a looming visit from 2015 premiers the Hurricanes in Sydney on Saturday night.
The 'Canes are coming off a hard fought victory over the Blues and Kellaway knows the Waratahs need to be wary of their attacking flair, in what will be a timely test for the NSW attack.
"They've some pretty impressive firepower out there so it will be great to see us go up against them, and all the Kiwi teams love to take the game on and so do we," he said.
"They're obviously a class attack and we're lucky we have guys like Rob Horne and Izzy in the midfield who are going to go a long way to stopping that, for us it's about doing the things we do well and sticking to our structure."
