“It’s just a little mindset shift but as soon made it, I really enjoyed the actual role. You’re coming on 20 or 30 to go and the game is in the balance, and pressure is on. You still feel you’re in there, you’re in the heat of the battle. “It’s a skill to learn how to finish the game. Not that I’ve mastered it at all, but it taken me a while to understand how to do it, and what is required in that moment. Not what’s best for me, what’s best for the team right now?” A return to the Wallabies would be a third coming for O’Connor, who emerged as a precociously talented teenager in 2008 and became the second-youngest Wallaby ever. Robbie Deans predicted he would play 200 Tests but O’Connor flew too close to the sun, and left Australian rugby in 2013 after going off the rails. But having grown up and matured, O’Connor returned to the Wallabies with great acclaim in 2019. Amid injury setbacks, his last Test for the Wallabies in 2022. If O’Connor was to be tapped as a utility by Schmidt, it could have twice the yield: as much for his knowledge and mentorship, as his capacity to handle the nerve-shredding pressure of a Lions Test match. With a batch of youngish Wallabies playmaker, the value of having the then 23-year-old who had the same hotseat in 2013 being still around - and in the form to win earn a place in the squad - won’t be lost on Schmidt. “In every way the boy then and the man here (today) are different,” he said. “You only know what you know, so rugby-wise and off the field too. That was my journey and it went that way. But I wouldn’t change anything because I wouldn’t be where I am right now, if I didn’t go through that period of life. “In terms of rugby knowledge, geez I could beat guys one-on-one quite well and still had a decent enough kicking game, but I knew nothing of how to manage a game. I was pretty green. It was the first time I’d been given the keys, so to speak.” O’Connor had only played one Test in the no.10, in 2011, before the Lions series. “I’d played quite a few times for my country and I played Super Rugby at 10 for a few years, but it is a very different game and one I didn’t even know about, because I didn’t have a growth mindset. I thought I knew it all by that stage. I was taught a lesson in that series and I’ve been taught a couple more lessons over the years.” O’Connor will keep doing his thing for the Crusaders and if a call comes from Schmidt, he’ll be stoked. But he won’t be sweating on it. This year has emphasised the value, and the rewards, in putting team before self. “I will just wait and see what comes, it’s almost that path-of-least resistance approach,” O’Connor said. “Let life surprise me. I’m enjoying the adventure.”