After fearing he'd played his last Test, James O'Connor is being lauded for delivering maybe his best performance yet in a Wallabies gold jumper.
A record-breaking 17 years after debuting as a teenage utility in Padova, O'Connor pulled all the right strings as chief playmaker in Australia's extraordinary 38-22 comeback win over the world champion Springboks in Johannesburg.
Only drafted into the squad following injuries to preferred flyhalves Noah Lolesio, Tom Lynagh and Ben Donaldson, O'Connor played a starring role in the Wallabies' first win at Ellis Park since 1963.
Despite turning 36 next year and having only been used as a cameo finisher off the bench during the Crusaders' triumphant 2025 Super Rugby Pacific campaign, O'Connor controlled proceedings for the entire 80 minutes on Sunday morning (AEST).
"Look, genuinely, words can't describe right now," he said.
"That's personally definitely my favourite win. It meant so much.
"It's been a lot of emotion this week, a lot of reflection. I thought my time in the gold jersey was done three years ago.
"I fought bloody hard to get back here and the opportunity came with some of the guys getting injured, but I'm here now and I'm loving it."
As well as slotting four conversions, O'Connor helped set up Australia's opening try for Dylan Pietsch that sparked the remarkable comeback from 22-0 down, then threw a magical two-man cut-out pass for the 65th-minute five-pointer from Max Jorgensen that virtually sealed the Wallabies' famous win.
"He just grew into the game," said Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt.
"I thought he got a little bit rattled in the first 20 minutes, just with the heat that the Boks brought.
"But the longer the game went on, I felt he started to manage it really well."
O'Connor readily admitted returning to the Test ranks after a three-year absence had been daunting at times.
"I'm not going to lie," he told Stan Sport.
"There's been plenty of times I've thought in my mind, 'Jeez, have I bit off more than I could chew here' because training's quick, everything's hard, everything's quicker.
"And I thought, 'Man, I might have talked it up too much now'.
"But the boys who got around me, they've looked after me and we've slowly just built into this game plan and, yeah, I'm really loving that detail that Joe's bringing.
"He's allowing us to play and really execute in killer moments of the game."
The 65-Test veteran agreed with Schmidt that it took a while to find his feet as the Springboks made a ferocious start to the Rugby Championship with three tries in the opening 17 minutes.
"A scratchy first 20, but I could feel the gaps were there," O'Connor said.
"The space was there. I just couldn't get the ball to that space in the first 20.
"Then I felt we eased into the game in that second 20 minutes of that first half.
"I felt like we built momentum well and we started to get some outcomes.
"So halftime we spoke about it. 'Look, we're in this game, we know we can score points. It's just about trusting what we've built.'
"That belief is strong in us now. We've been building. You could see in that Lions series that we're building belief.
"So doubling down and there you go, that's a result, so super proud and stoked."
