Blake Enever was minding his own business at the Australian team hotel in London on Friday when Wallabies coach Michael Cheika asked to see him.
Delighted just to be a part of the squad for the first time and on a spring tour, the 26-year-old Brumbies lock was revelling in the experience of being around world-class players and travelling around the UK.
A thumb injury to Adam Coleman appeared to have cleared up when he trained on Thursday so Enever, who'd been told to prepare as if he was going to play, thought at best he would win a place on the bench to face England.
Instead he was told by the straight-talking Cheika Coleman was going home for surgery and to get his head around debuting for Australia in front of a crowd of 82,000.
"'Cheik' told me this week to prepare as if I was going to play and then it ended up happening lunch time yesterday ... It's unreal to get a debut here at Twickenham," Enever said on Saturday.
"It's probably a blessing in disguise that it happened so quickly. Just went into the preparation for the game and all the boys got around me. It was unreal."
Last weekend, on matchday morning in Cardiff, Enever was part of the non-playing 23 that took part in a training session with the Welsh team before watching his teammates chalk up a 29-21 win at the Principality Stadium.
Fast forward seven days and he was competing in the line-out against England stars Joe Launchbury and Maro Itoje.
This despite coming off the bench in 10 of his 13 Super Rugby appearances for the Brumbies last season and being more of a regular in the Canberra Vikings NRC side.
"I don't know if I would have agreed with you," admitted Enever when asked what he would have said if someone suggested to him a month ago he'd be playing at Twickenham.
"I'm stoked to do it myself. I was counting my NRC (points) with a mate of mine, I was probably up there in the top five.
"I got called into the squad and couldn't be happier and got stuck in while I was here. To get the opportunity to play is a dream come true."
Cheika said he was pleased with Enever's contribution in the loss to England but the Queenslander is unsure if he's done enough to keep his place in the side to face Scotland next weekend.
"I'm not entirely sure what's going to happen in terms of selection next week," he said. "
I'll put my hand up and hopefully get another run next week. It'd be awesome to play next week as well."
