It was the stand-out win of the year for Ireland, an overachievement that went under the radar.
In the early hours of Monday 30 September, Scott Bemand’s side downed back-to-back World Cup champions New Zealand in their opening WXV1 game in Vancouver.
Very few saw the 29-27 victory as it happened, there was little expectation, and the game was only available online.
As the match unfolded, it appeared to stick closely to a common Ireland-New Zealand narrative.
Ireland, though Aoife Wafer, aka ‘Red headgear’, and Neve Jones, scored three tries and it was all square at the break.
A yellow card for the girls in green followed and New Zealand led with 14 minutes to go.
Then Erin King.
Introduced 10 minutes into the second half, making just her second ever appearance for Ireland, the back row was to have a major impact on the match.
The Wicklow woman buzzed around the pitch, providing a second wind for the underdogs. She made all of half a metre for two tries, the second, in the 79th minute, coming after the world champions had retaken the lead.
That was to tie the game up and Dannah O’Brien landed the crucial conversion to seal a famous victory.
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King’s tries weren’t much to the naked eye but things of beauty to the purist, a hint of Brian O’Driscoll against England in 2009.
Prior to making her debut against Australia two weeks previous as a second-half substitute in the 36-10 win, King had lined up as a senior player just three times for Dublin side Old Belvedere.
She’d played underage, alongside Wafer, for Leinster youths, but she was seen as a Sevens specialist, having played over 100 games for Ireland in that code since making her debut in 2021.
In last summer’s Olympics, an incident (above) where King lifted and held aloft team-mate Emily Lane as she spun backwards went viral and was viewed millions of times.
But back to those scores and how quickly, four weeks into senior camp, she could flick the switch in the brain from Sevens to 15s.
“I spoke to Scott and he could see that I like to play what I can see, he gave me the freedom to go out of the system,” King tells RTÉ Sport.
“I’ve been playing rugby for a long time, longer than a lot of the girls, and I do have that instinct and initiative. I do have a rugby brain so I guess it comes naturally because I played 15s growing up.
“I suppose the tries, I wonder why don’t I just pick up the ball and put it on the line when the line is there, why do we have to pass it and carry high?
“Why would we work harder when we can do it easier? It’s nice to have a different perspective and freshen things up.”
She didn’t stop there, scoring a crucial try in the subsequent 26-14 win over USA, which ultimately resulted in a second-place finish, behind England, in WXV1.
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If the brace against New Zealand was pure 15s, then the tap and go against the Eagles was all Sevens.
After the referee awarded Ireland a penalty, King took the ball off Linda Djougang and sauntered to the mark before spotting the opportunity in the retreating US line and bashing her way over.
The crossover players are often asked about which sport they prefer and thankfully King eschews the stock answer about it being an honour to pull on the green jersey no matter where or when.
“I started with Sevens, but I have fallen in love with 15s,” she says.
“It’s a big drive for me that I get to play at home because you don’t get that in Sevens.
“The sports are very different and I don’t think everyone appreciates how tough it is to transfer over.
“Yeah, they’re both rugby but their skills are different, and they complement each other.
“Strategically and tactically, they’re insanely different. Sevens, I guess, the glamorous lifestyle, it suits me.
“I’d say for this year, my main focus will be on the 15s
“If it’s an Olympic year, it’s gonna be Sevens and that’s just the way the way it is.”
King’s journey to where she is now has been interesting.
Born in Sydney to English parents, the family departed Australia when King was three.
She spent the next seven years in Dubai and Qatar, playing rugby alongside her brothers, and was 12 when the family relocated to Blessington in Co Wicklow, where her wider family hail from.
King played Gaelic football for the county but rugby was the natural draw with Naas RFC in Kildare her mother club, the springboard for underage representative honours with Leinster and Ireland.
She was just 17 when her Sevens potential was recognised and she juggled that schedule with Leaving Cert studies in 2021.
Following the Olympics in Paris, “a lifelong dream”, Bemand called King up to train with Ireland just two weeks in advance of the Wallaroos match.
She did enough in that game and two and a half subsequent outings to earn global recognition in the form of the World Rugby Breakthrough Player of the Year award.
“[The Australia game] almost feels like a lifetime ago,” she says.
“I’d say sitting there when I was being interviewed after the game, I didn’t realise what was to come for me and could have never imagined it.”
King is modest and claims she got to “jump on the bandwagon” as the Ireland resurgence under Bemand gains momentum.
The former Red Roses assistant took over from Greg McWilliams after Ireland finished the 2023 Six Nations with the wooden spoon.
Two wins, against Wales and Scotland were enough for a third-place finish last spring, and with it, World Cup qualification and elevation to the first tier of WXV.
There’s no doubt that Bemand’s cause has been helped by having almost full access to the Sevens panel, something that his predecessor did not enjoy.
“Greg was unfortunate that he didn’t have the freedom that Scott has,” adds King.
“Scott is so good for the program, he pushes, and he goes to the top people and he tells them what we are going to do and what he wants.
“We’re reaping the rewards, he tells them ‘give us the Sevens players and we’ll perform and then we do’.
“He’s been in high performance for so long with the Red Roses, the best women’s team in the world. We’re so lucky to have that expertise, to have his wealth of knowledge is crazy. .
“Our lineout coach, Alex Codling, was such a big help to me.
“I didn’t know how to run a lineout, I didn’t know how to maul.
“I was in camp for two weeks before that Australia game and he fast-tracked me into knowing everything.”
After proving they are able to mix it with the best in Canada, Ireland face into a big year, which includes home Six Nations ties against England and France, and a World Cup in England next August and September that will see a rematch with the Black Ferns in Pool C, where Spain and Japan also await.
“It’s all coming together and it’s all kind of stemmed from Scott and his high-performance background,” says King, who did a personal trainer course last year but will fully focus on rugby in 2025.
“His standards are really high and if you’re not able to give him the standards he wants, you’re not meant to be there.
“He gives us great confidence while also being like, ‘that wasn’t good enough’, that’s what the programme needed, a bit of a kick up the bum.”
With more consistent performances and better results comes higher expectation.
The narrative around previous renewals with world number one England, and France has been about containment and respectability.
King reckons Ireland, now ranked sixth in the world, are ready to take the next step.
“The sky’s the limit with this team, we’re going to keep surprising and shocking people,” she says.
“Going into WXV, everyone kind of said if it too much of a jump too soon.
“And we turned around and showed them that it wasn’t.
“The belief is there, and the talent is there and once we have a game plan and we stick to it, I reckon this team is going to do things that they’ve never done before.
“I’m so excited for the Six Nations ‘cos I think there’s going to be a few upsets.”
It’s been a hectic year for King, who’s just finished Awaken Your Power Within by Gerry Hussey and hopes to get her hands on Johnny Sexton’s Obsessed over Christmas.
But there’s little time for R&R for King and she played for the Wolfhounds against Clovers twice in the last nine days.
There’s no sign that she’ll slow down anytime soon.