If you walked past Wellington’s Dane Coles on an Edinburgh street this week you’d have no trouble picking him as an All Black.
He wears the kit, has the physique of a maturing young hooker and is very rarely far away from tutors Keven Mealamu and Andrew Hore.
But despite getting the phone call from coach Steve Hansen and travelling halfway around the world with the rest of the 32 man squad, for Coles the reality is yet to sink in.
The “new kid on the block” admits his head has taken a little while longer to join his feet on the ground in Scotland.
“It’s been overwhelming the first couple of days, just trying to get my head around that I’m actually here, on an All Blacks tour. It’s been awesome, but I think putting that jersey on will be just unreal.”
The newbie has had plenty to take in and has spent a lot of time with his head in the playbook.
“Being new I’ve got to take in quite a bit of content so I was just trying to take it all in, but I’m going to have to do a little bit of homework and get that right,” he said.
Coles is in line for his first cap in the number 16 jersey against Scotland on Monday (AEDT) with former Hurricanes teammate Andrew Hore set to start.
Mealamu is likely to look on from the stands and if Coles does well he should double his number of caps in Italy six days later with 100 Test veteran Mealamu replacing Hore in the starting lineup.
Coles did not feature with the All Blacks during the inaugural Rugby Championship, which means his 25-year-old legs should have plenty more spring in their step than those of the veteran pair.
“We’ve done a lot of travelling over the past six weeks so we believe the best way to get two great performances to start this tour is to use the resources that we’ve got,” assistant coach Ian Foster said.