Ben Murdoch-Masila's recollection of the catalyst for his NRL resurrection came to him with the ease of his smile.
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It was November 2, 2019, and the new Warriors signing starred for Tonga in their first-ever defeat of Australia, at New Zealand's Eden Park.
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The calls were immediate: the 29-year-old New Zealand-born forward deserved an NRL encore after stints with Wests Tigers and Penrith between 2010 and 2015.
The Warriors were paying attention: in March last year the club announced that they had signed Murdoch-Masila to a three-year deal from 2021.
The arrangement ended his five-year Super League stint, where he became a cult hero at Warrington between 2018-20 (he scored 20 tries in 68 games for the Wolves).
Last month he returned to Australia and immediately went into a mandatory 14-day quarantine period at a Sydney hotel.
And on Sunday he arrived in Tamworth with the Warriors for a month-long preseason training camp.
His NRL return was not something he thought possible.
"That's why I took it when it came," he said of the Warriors deal. "I never thought I'd be back in the NRL again.
"I said to myself, if it did come around I'd take it straight away," added the married father of one after Warriors training at Scully Park (his wife, Roxy, captained the Wolves' women's side).
The 186cm and 114kg second-rower said the Warriors contacted him after the defeat of Australia.
"I didn't expect to get anything from it," he said of the clash. "I was expecting to go back to the UK and re-sign there [with Warrington].
"But as soon as that [the Warriors offer] came through, I had a good think about it with the family and made the right choice."
Murdoch-Masila was besotted as the Warriors rebounded from a horror start to the relaunched 2020 season, while long separated from loved ones because of COVID-19 - an unexpected but, ultimately, unsuccessful charge towards the finals.
"What they did is nothing short of extraordinary," he said, adding that that factored into his decision to join the club.
After signing Murdoch-Masila, Warriors recruitment manager Peter O'Sullivan said he was "right up among the best forwards in the game right now, and he had plenty of clubs trying to sign him".
