Abby Moyles laughs as she remembers the first time she was asked to play fly-half as the Meath woman charts her path to the Ulster senior team.
Having played almost exclusively on the wing in her formative years, Moyles suddenly found herself thrust into the 10 jersey by her coaches at Leinster Under-18s level for a trial match.
“I thought, ‘aw jeez, this is a bit much!’” she smiles.
“But it was sink or swim and I loved it, I never wanted to play on the wing again.”
But Moyles’ career has been about taking those sink or swim risks, setting aside her promising GAA and soccer careers to focus on rugby instead, before she made another big call by swapping the blue of Leinster for Ulster last year.
A brave decision indeed, leaving her native province who had been involved in every Interprovincial Championship Final since 2002 in favour of joining Murray Houston’s then flagging squad, who hadn’t won a game in 11 years let alone a title.
Parachuted into a squad needing a shot in the arm as their playmaker general at fly-half, Moyles knew it would be a tough ask — but so far it has proven to be the best decision she could have made.
“It’s all about game time,” continues the niece of former Meath footballer Anthony Moyles.
“At Leinster, I wasn’t needed and that’s fine. You find that with teams. I was just happy to move to get game time and that’s how you improve.
“Last year, coming in as the 10, it forced me to become more mature in that role. It’s a pivotal position on the pitch, you’re controlling a lot. You almost have to develop because you have to do a lot of talking and step up.”
Now one of the leading figures in the squad, Moyles is keen to ensure that having ended one lengthy winning drought a year ago with victory over Connacht, Ulster don’t embark on another.
The province finally picked up their first win since 2012 when they knocked off their western rivals 36-14 in last year’s Championship and with a must-win rematch coming at Ravenhill on Saturday, the desire is to make it back-to-back wins over the same opponents.
“Sitting watching last weekend (a 29-22 loss to Munster) was devastating for me, so I’m really excited to be back this weekend,” adds Moyles.
“Last year, coming into the team I didn’t know it was an 11-year gap, so when I saw how emotional some of the girls were, it made me emotional.
“There’s something here now. We want to be in that Final on the 31st playing for first place. We know we’ll have to work bloody hard for that but we know we have it in us.
“We know we’re not going to walk over them but they know they’re not going to walk over us. It’s going to be a fight.”