When Brittany Hogan thinks back to her first time walking into the Sale Sharks changing room in January, the word that comes to mind is "daunting".
After years of the same faces and surroundings, whether it be Old Belvedere or Ulster or Ireland, the 27-year-old was suddenly a new kid at school.
She did have her former Ulster and Ireland team-mate Vicky Irwin, who has been at Sale since 2020, by her side to help with the introductions.
But this was still a leap into the deep end of a Shark's tank.
"I was so nervous," the Ireland back row says, as she recalls her first days at the Premiership side.
Plenty of the faces were familiar in the changing room, with the Sharks squad bursting with internationals from England, Scotland, Wales, USA and Canada.
But they had always just been faces in the opposite corner, numbers on a different jersey.
"I knew of Rhona [Rhona Lloyd], Beatrice [Beatrice Rigoni], Courtney [Keight]. I knew all of them, but I'd never met them and spoken to them or anything, so that kind of presented a challenge in itself.
"I'd been around same girls since I was 15, so it's kind of very daunting."
She cringes as she remembers her first home match, when she was getting a lift from England international Morwenna Talling.
After a brief pitstop at the players’ house to collect some gear, Hogan got back into the car only to be informed they were across the road from the stadium.
"Literally a stone's throw away from the stadium. So she was having the right laugh at me."
Given the improvements Ireland have made in the women’s game across the last three seasons, there was always likely to be interest in Scott Bemand’s squad from the ever-expanding Premiership.
Since the World Cup, Aoife Wafer has been signed up by Harlequins, Niamh O’Dowd has joined some of her fellow Ireland internationals at defending champions Gloucester-Hartpury, while Hogan eventually signed with Sale.
She admits she sat with the offer for quite a while. Initial contact had been made during the World Cup, and a knee injury during Ireland’s quarter-final defeat to France meant there was no need to rush decision.
Hogan (below) eventually signed for the club in November after discussing the move with Bemand and head of women’s performance Gillian McDarby, as well as her partner – Ireland international Natasja Behan.
"I'm really, really enjoying it," she adds.
"The whole set up there, the coaching staff, the girls, the culture there, it's been so good and it's made my heart really happy.
"Fortunately, the rugby side of it has gone very, very well. So for us, for Sale as a club, it's just been great."
Hogan, who has won 38 caps for Ireland in addition to her experience in Sevens, came close to making the Premiership move before.
Three years ago she started to feel the itch around the time that this Irish team was at an all-time low.
"It was just before Scott came in, I was thinking about going over," she revealed.
"I just kind of wanted a new scene. But whenever Scott [Bemand] came in, that kind of provided that new scene for me.
"So working with him, and working with the new coaching staff and the new team that he created, I wanted to be involved in that and try and put my hand up for the best World Cup that I could have had and I could have given the country."
Her injury in that World Cup quarter-final, a torn medial collateral ligament, allowed her time to plan the move, heading over to England in January to finish her rehab before her making her debut off the bench at Bristol in early February.
"As soon as I got into the matches, I was hit with a brick wall. I was like, 'this is what I'm going to have to do every single week’."
Her first two games for the Sharks were as a replacement, and both ended in defeat, but after marking her first start with a try in a 36-31 win at Trailfinders, she retained the number 8 jersey as they went on a five-game winning run, which eventually came to an end last weekend with a heavy defeat to Saracens, played as part of a double-header with the Sarries men’s team at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
"We had 16,001 people watching that game, and we were in the NFL away changing rooms, but the staff changing rooms, not even the players' rooms, and the facilities were incredible.
"There was carpet on the changing room floor, and we were on it our muddy boots, being like, ‘I don't want to walk on this. I don't want to make this dirty’. My mum would tell me off for that.
"But the stadium itself was class."
The back row will get to tick a few more iconic stadiums off the list in the coming weeks.
While she has played against England at Twickenham before, next week’s Guinness Women’s Six Nations opener (live on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player) is set to be played in front of record crowd of more than 70,000, according to the latest ticket sales.
A trip to Clermont’s historic Stade Marcel Michelin follows later this month, before the real showstopper, as Ireland play their first standalone women’s Test at Aviva Stadium on Sunday 17 May.
"It's all of our dreams," she says of their clash with Scotland at Lansdowne Road next month.
"We watch the men every single Six Nations. We watch them in the Novembers.
"The Aviva is the home of Irish rugby and for us to have - the women have played there before in a dual fixture - but for us to have our own standalone fixture in one of the biggest competitions in the world, it's great.
"I don't really have words, I'm just kind of stuttering, but it's something that we are all going to be so proud, proud to do and we can't wait for it."
Just over three years on from a real low in Irish women’s rugby, bringing a Six Nations game to the Aviva highlights the remarkable turnaround in just under three years.
In 2024, a third-place finish and World Cup qualification was a hopeful target, and just 18 months later Hogan and her team-mates were left devastated at narrowly missing out on a semi-final at the tournament.
Keeping that train moving is the next step, and 2026 will see expectations rise in line with those previous performances.
Three home wins against Italy, Wales and Scotland look like being the bar that has to be met, but she believes a major performance away from home is the next goal to be reached.
"I've never experienced an international tournament where I'm going to be playing against people that I play with," she said.
"So I'm really looking forward to that side of things anyway.
"I think the World Cup, that will stand to us and we're definitely looking to go one or two places up this Six Nations anyway.
"We're going to try and challenge ourselves and hopefully, hopefully put it back to France and hopefully give England a really, really good go.
"I think that we should be coming into that game with a little bit of confidence of, especially with how we performed last year in the first half, like, exactly where we can put England to and hopefully, hopefully it will stick to us at the end of the result."
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