the Christchurch test<\/a> allowing family and friends to witness the occasion in person.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s all happened so fast, so there hasn\u2019t been much processing time to be fair. I only found out I was in at lunchtime,\u201d Hannah said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got an idea yesterday at captain\u2019s run, and then it got confirmed this morning. In a way, it was good, just getting straight in there and straight out to get into it. It was unreal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hannah said pulling on the black jersey was the fulfilment of a lifelong dream.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike every young kid in New Zealand, it\u2019s a childhood dream and to get the opportunity to do it in front of my friends and family was just unreal.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll my friends and family already had tickets, so it\u2019s been unreal the last few hours.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fineanganofo\u2019s debut had been widely anticipated after a stellar Super Rugby Pacific campaign, where he equalled the competition\u2019s single-season tryscoring record with 17, alongside Hurricanes teammate Josh Moorby.<\/p>\n
The 22-year-old admitted the emotions of becoming an All Black overwhelmed both he and his family after the final whistle.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey couldn\u2019t stop crying, and I was just trying to keep strong and not cry outside. I\u2019ll cry back in the changing room,\u201d Fineanganofo said.<\/p>\n
Once he stepped on to the field, his thoughts immediately turned to those who had supported him throughout his journey.<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t believe it at first, but once I got on, I just couldn\u2019t stop thinking about my family and how proud they would be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite his outstanding Super form, Fineanganofo said the nerves before his debut were unlike anything he had experienced.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t think I\u2019d be that nervous. I was sitting on the bench nearly vomiting. At halftime, I was in the toilet spewing. I felt better after it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The All Blacks now travel to Wellington for their second Nations Championship match against Italy next weekend. Italy opened their campaign with a 27-10 loss to Japan in Tokyo.<\/p>\n
Ben Francis<\/a> is an Auckland-based reporter for the New Zealand Herald who covers breaking sports news.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"However, after Patrick Tuipulotu succumbed to a calf injury, the 23-year-old got the call just hours before kickoff…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":510571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[253810,5263,6743,8136,4487,35140,254143,254144,1888,1221,22137,9519,1446,111,139,11550,254145,69,1523,39429,1534,213,765,2044,61,8982,167092],"class_list":["post-510570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-253810","tag-all","tag-became","tag-blacks","tag-christchurch","tag-debuts","tag-fehi","tag-fineanganofo","tag-first","tag-france","tag-hannah","tag-jamie","tag-making","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nights","tag-numia","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-react","tag-saturday","tag-sports","tag-test","tag-time","tag-to","tag-victory","tag-xavier"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}