Ollie Hoskins’ beaming grin shone through the Twickenham gloom.
The 28-year-old prop from Perth had just achieved his boyhood dream and completed one of the great feelgood stories by taking the famous turf to make his Wallabies debut against England.
The little known London Irish tighthead was parachuted into the Test squad after both Taniela Tupou and Allan Alaalatoa suffered head knocks against Scotland.
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And despite a 32-15 loss, Hoskins was rightly thrilled with the unlikely experience and did not look out of place during his brief second half stint off the bench.
“Pretty surreal mate,” Hoskins told Stan Sport’s Mark Pougatch afterwards.
“I didn’t think I’d be here so it’s amazing, what an experience.”
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Pougatch also captured an emotional post-game embrace between Hoskins and his father Nick, who flew from Kuala Lumpur to watch his son’s Test debut and arrived in London at 5am.
“It’s been a crazy week mate,” Hoskins said.
“It’s just flown by and it’s been wild. I think I’ve had about 1000 messages from people across the world. It’s happened really quickly but I’m so grateful mate.
“This is an amazing experience, I can’t believe it’s happened really.”
Hoskins joked that he had been badgering the coaching staff to let him off the leash earlier.
“But I’d be happy with 10 seconds mate, honestly. When I got the call originally I told myself even if I don’t get to play it’s an amazing achievement for me, even to be considered. So for me to get on the pitch and get a cap, it’s hard for me to put into words. I’m really grateful.”
Hoskins, who describes himself as a “massive nerd,” told the Sydney Morning Herald that he was playing Dungeons and Dragons with a friend on Sunday night when the Wallabies came calling.
“I live around the corner and I’ve been lucky enough to have my family quite close, my wife is around the corner during the week so it’s felt as normal as it could in very strange circumstances,” Hoskins said.
“I’m just feeling so, so lucky and blessed to be here, this is an unbelievable experience.”
As for the game itself, Hoskins said the Wallabies were their own worst enemies.
“I don’t think we really got a foot into the game the whole day, I’d be surprised if we had more than 10 phases in their half the entire game.
“We gave away too many penalties, we were dropping balls in contact, we kind of shot ourselves in the foot a lot there. But the experience of Test match footy was everything I expected. It was fast, it was physical, I loved every second of it.
“Hopefully I can do it again and if not, if this is my one and only cap, I’m proud to be a Wallaby and I’ll never, ever forget this experience.”