It took just one game for Hagiga Mosby to show why she could be the key to the Reds breaking their Waratahs Super W hoodoo.
For the third successive match against the Tahs - including the last two Super W grand finals - Queensland were beaten by just three points.
But in the dying minutes, their flying winger almost stole the show.
A rising star in the sevens game, Mosby stood up her opposite number and looked as though she had tiptoed her way down the sideline before being bundled into touch by Tahs due Maya Stewart and Arabella McKenzie.
"I did a little heel click, I was up, and then you hear the crowd going ohhh!," Reds captain Lori Cramer said of the move she thought had led to a match-winning try.
The move came as little surprise to Cramer, who has played with Mosby in the Aon Uni 7s for the University of Queensland.
Such is the pace of the Far North Queenslander she was called into the national sevens program.
Mosby was set to earn a chance with the national team before coronavirus fears caused the postponement of World Series events in Singapore and Hong Kong, leading to her being released back to Queensland for the remainder of the Super W season.
Originally from Thursday Island in the Torres Strait, Mosby was scouted playing touch in Cairns and has played sevens for the Australian youth team as well as an Australian women's team that competed at the Oceania championships.
But she showed in her Super W debut on Saturday her game can be just as effective at the XVs level.
Mosby described her sevens release as a "win-win" situation, given her love for both formats of the game.
But she admitted she was no cool customer before her major XVs debut.
"I was so nervous," Mosby said. "I kept going through my phone to go over the plays and kept asking questions, I was nervous as.
"But I got it out of my system now, which is good."
Cramer said the Reds coaching staff and players tried to take the pressure off Mosby before the match.
"The big thing we told her at the beginning of the game was just to play rugby," Cramer said.
"I think you can get caught up in structure - because in XVs there is obviously much more structure than in sevens - in sevens, if you can beat someone one-on-one, you're in.
"But for her, just learning about building pressure and tactics … she was just told to focus on playing herself and not get too caught up in all the nerdy stuff."
At just 154cm, Mosby is towered over by many of her rivals, although fits right in, in a Reds backline that includes Ivania Wong and Courtney Hodder, both just 152cm. And like that pair, Mosby plays without fear.
"NSW have bigger girls but it's not about how big you are, it's what you can find within, you've just got to back yourself," she said.
Like Cramer, Mosby, who is studying to become a secondary school teacher in a bid to return to the Far North as a role model for young girls, thought she had broken through the Waratahs line before being dragged down late in the game.
"I thought ( I got past her) but oh well, next time," she said.
With NSW having all but sealed a place in the Super W grand final with the win, "next time" the great rivals meet could be in the Super W decider.
"Queensland versus NSW is always a big rivalry and next time we're going to bring it," Mosby said.
