Poacher turned fisherman Josh van der Flier caught a big one this week when his Japanese experience took a deep dive.
The Ireland flanker made an impressive World Cup debut against Scotland six days ago and made the team for today's encounter with the host nation in Shizuoka.
In between, on Wednesday, he hit the high seas, heading out to the Pacific Ocean on a trawler boat in the company of colleagues Robbie Henshaw, Rhys Ruddock and Jean Kleyn.
All part of the journey that he has embraced fully so far.
“I've really enjoyed the hotel we're in at the moment, it's real traditional Japanese," the 26-year-old said.
"It's kind of cool having your shoes off and walking around in your bare feet. It's very different.
"Then we got to do some deep-sea fishing for a couple of hours. It was kind of an hour out to the sea by an estuary, then an hour fishing and the hour back. So it was quite short and sharp.
"It was trawling so that was a bit of fun. It was as much about the scenery and being able to drive through it with the mountains in the distance.
"It's such an incredible country. It's a pity we'll only get to see a few parts of it, but it is an incredible place."
Judging by his instagram picture, which shows himself and Ruddock holding up two large fish on the pier, the trip was a success.
As has been the tournament so far, with Ireland preparing to head off on the next leg of their adventure to Kobe, which is famous for its beef.
“It has been nice," said the Leinster man. "We were obviously up near Tokyo and in Yokohama and so we have been in cities where it is very busy around the place, whereas this week we have been in a retreat-type hotel
"There's not much around, it is out in the countryside, it's just the team there really and there has been no-one else around.
"It has been good to focus and kind of get a bit of a mental refresher away from the mayhem of being in a city or having a lot of people around.
"It's kind of a hard place for family to get to as well so it has just been the team and it has been really good. I got some good training in here too.”
“I'm absolutely loving it. You obviously don't want to get into full tourist mode, that's not really the idea why we're here, but I have absolutely loved being here.
"The food is absolutely incredible and we have been looked after really well.
"And I'm enjoying the culture. You learn something new every day or some way we might have offended someone or things that they find respectful or disrespectful, what's expected of people and the customs.
"There are some mad facts about the place, it's just so different. It feels very far from home.
"I was explaining to my family, France feels very different but it is obviously still similar enough, just a different language, whereas everything is very different here."
James Ryan has been slurping down ramen with relish, Keith Earls turned his nose up at eating sea urchins. Is there anything that van der Flier has avoided?
“There's been a couple of things and I didn't know what they were, but I ate them anyway. Earlsy's probably just more knowledgeable than me!".
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