Her league diehard family are still coming around, but Paige Leonard hasn't looked back since deciding to join partner Harry Mills at the Tamworth Magpies.
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Three years after swapping the Steeden for the Gilbert, Leonard has become a real leader and inspiration for the women's side, and developed into one of the best players in the whole of country NSW.
Last month the prop was named in the NSW Country Corellas training squad.
The first Magpies women's player to be selected in a Country senior team, on Saturday she will fly down to Sydney for her first training camp with the squad.
"It's pretty unimaginable. I never thought I'd go this far in rugby that's for sure," the 24-year-old.
From the weekend the coaches will cut the squad back to 28 to play in the Australian Rugby Shield in Brisbane later in the year.
Leonard would love to have that opportunity, but said just making the training squad is great.
Albeit "definitely" quite a shock.
It wasn't really something in her consciousness so when, on the Wednesday before the squad was announced, she got a call while she was at work she naturally thought it was "someone from work".
Even then when Country coach Mat Thomas introduced himself she questioned whether he had "got the right Paige".
He did.
"It should be really exciting going to the next level," she said.
The only disappointing thing is that she will miss the Magpies' clash with St Albert's, and Ladies Day.
The squad was selected from the Country Championships held in Tamworth on the June long weekend. Leonard was a standout for the New England women's side with coach Luke Stephen highlighting her performance as one of the real positives of their campaign.
For her part, Leonard was a bit more circumspect about her performance.
"I think I played some good games," she said.
"[But] I know I can play better.
"So that's in the back of my mind, knowing that I can go down there and actually play a lot better than what I did."
Playing 10s of a weekend, she revelled in the 15s environment.
"I do like 15s," she said.
"It's a slower game but more physical intensity, which I enjoy."
The call-up is a reward for her hard work.
Since last October, Leonard has been working with Georgia Manvell at Hook Grip Personal Training.
"I've been working with her twice a week and then training extra hard so obviously all that paid off," she said.
The biggest advantage has been that she can "last longer in games".
"Last year I was doing five minutes here and there before I'd be absolutely out of breath," she said.
This year she has consistently been playing most, if not all, of the game, which she jokingly pointed out is "not normally a prop thing".
Game times for the action at Tamworth Rugby Park on Saturday have been tweaked slightly with the women's game being played before second grade rather than first grade.
Gates open at 10.30am with the first game at 11.40am.
