James O'Connor says there was a time he couldn't get out of bed for weeks. He couldn't face people. He was living a lie.
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Today the Queensland Reds flyhalf has rewritten his own story, and it makes for one iconic tale.
O'Connor scored all 19 points for the Reds in their thrilling three-point triumph over the ACT Brumbies to claim the Super Rugby AU championship.
Though his first half was clunky, he delivered when the game hung in the balance.
So five of those points will be talked about for years to come after the 30-year-old playmaker scored the match-winning try long after the 80th minute against an undermanned defensive line.
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The domestic title marks the first piece of silverware O'Connor has won on Australian soil, capping off a long journey since he burst onto the scene as a blonde-tipped teen in Perth.
"To be honest I'm pretty blown away, it's a surreal moment. My emotions were pretty high straight after the game," O'Connor said.
"I'm just really proud of this group, we put it out there pretty early. Brad [Thorn] said the Brumbies spoke about it at the start of the week, that we'd said we want silverware and we were the favourites.
"Genuinely, we put it out there. We thought there was belief there that we could get this done. There has been a lot of rebuilding years. Credit to the staff for keeping the Queenslanders in Queensland, and rebuilding.
"It's our time. We are our worst enemies at times, but when the game is on the line, you've seen it many times this year, we come together and we hustle as a group and we get the job done.
"We won some big moments and we stuck until the end. We made a joke about making it hard for ourselves, but super proud."
The fallout could be huge for the Brumbies. Andy Muirhead was left in a moon boot while Scott Sio wore a compression sleeve over his arm as a precaution in the aftermath.
The beaten now turn their attention to the Canterbury Crusaders, while the Reds open their Super Rugby Trans-Tasman campaign against the Otago Highlanders.
Come round two, the competition will have something of a Super Bowl on its hands when the Crusaders come to Brisbane to meet the Reds.
Needless to say O'Connor wants the majority of the 41,637 who witnessed the Super Rugby AU final back in the stands that night.
"It brought us in. We could feel the energy building from the crowd," O'Connor said.
"You could hear it, even times when we got over the line and it was a questionable call, the crowd gets involved and it puts pressure on the referees.
"At the end of the day, we're on Queensland soil, and how bloody good. I feel like Super Rugby is back, and Australian rugby is back. We want to make a statement."