Ten years ago the Waratahs went to Auckland and beat the Blues for the first time in 81 years.
It remains their only win at Eden Park - another four losses have followed - and if the man who steered NSW to victory that night has this week done his job, the Waratahs’ 2009 victory will remain an outlier.
Former long-serving NSW fly-half Daniel Halangahu is now the Blues’ backs coach; aka the chief mechanic in a garage of Ferraris like Rieko Ioane, Sonny Bill Williams, Maa Nonu and Melani Nanai.
But to drill down into why the affable 'Hangers' is now not only in the coaching world - after swearing he'd never go near it - but coaching the enemy, you must travel back to that same Waratahs’ trip to Auckland in 2009.
The night at Eden Park was a damn good one for Halangahu, the ultra-reliable Sydney Uni playmaker who occupied the hot seat of the Tahs no.10 for most of his 74-game career between 2006 and 2012.
Halangahu scored a crucial try in a 17-point haul as the Waratahs beat the Blues 27-22; snapping an Auckland drought dating back to 1928.
"It was probably one of the better games in my time playing for the Waratahs,” Halangahu told RUGBY.com.au this week.
"As a team it was always a big challenge to go to Eden Park, so to come away with a win that night was a good one.
"Lote (Tuqiri) always said he gave me a try assist because they were all trying to tackle him and that’s how I snuck over. It was a good win. There are some games you remember and that was one of them.”
That trip to Auckland stays in Halangahu’s memory as "fateful" for a much bigger reason, however.
The story starts with the flight over from Sydney to Auckland, when then-massive US band the Fray were on the Waratahs’ plane.
With no real clue who the Fray were but sensing the Grammy-nominated stars would appreciate a chat with a random, Tom Carter bowled up in the lounge.
"I probably owe Tom, to be fair,” Halangahu says.
"Tommy being the pest that he is, he went up and pestered them. He didn’t even know who they were, he just saw they were rockstars.
"So he gets chatting and he got us a few free tickets. The night before the game we just dropped in and heard a couple of songs, and I met Nadia at the concert.
"Six years later we got married."
After finishing up with NSW and playing in Italy and France, Halangahu and Nadia returned to her home town of Auckland, where he sought out playing opportunities.
Halangahu landed at North Harbour and after a few seasons of Mitre Ten Cup, he was approached about moving into coaching.
"It was probably a good way to get me into retirement,” Halangahu says.
"So I kind of fell into a coaching role and I enjoyed my time there. We had a bit of success and then I found myself with a role in the Blues.”
Halangahu is in his first season as the backs and skills coach with the Blues, under Leon McDonald.
"Some of those guys were my biggest nightmares when I was playing: Maa and Sonny in particular,” Halangahu laughs.
"There is some awesome talent but you talk about the Blues and they’ve always had that, so it’s nothing new to have some world-class athletes.
"What the group is about and the leadership is about is providing the glue in between those freakish moments and the freakish ability of those individuals, to try and provide the hard work in and around that so that they can shine.
"People always see Rieko and those guys and the freakish things they do. But internally we try and highlight people diving on loose balls and just working their butts off for the team.
"We try and grow that part of our game and then the Rieko and Sonny stuff becomes icing on top.”
Having studied sports science and business at Sydney Uni, Halangahu admits he never contemplated being a coach prior to his first day with a clipboard at North Harbour.
"Embarrassingly, I have been known as one of those blokes when I was playing who always firmly said I would never coach,” Halangahu says.
"Particularly at the Waratahs and the scrutiny you saw there, it’s a bit like playing no.10. If things are going great, awesome. But when it’s not, it can be a really tough space coaching. That was my experience at the Waratahs, seeing some of the coaches and what they went through, even when we were reasonably successful.
"It’s a tough gig so I always thought I’d get out and do something else in the world, and there’s still time. I probably will at some point."
Now ensconced in the Kiwi system - which Halangahu lauds for its coaching development systems and networks - the 35-year-old appears to snugly fit the mould: clever, phlegmatic and not prone to getting carried away.
Your Blues are red-hot after three straight wins, right? Unstoppable?
"We take it all pretty slowly with regards to that reaction stuff,” Halangahu says.
"I know that after the first three rounds people were writing us off and after the next three games, people are talking us up. The truth is somewhere in the middle probably.
"We haven’t actually proven anything yet, to be fair. There is a lot of work to do. This team has performed well in moments in different games and they definitely play for each other, they have a lot of heart.”
Halangahu is looking forward to catching up with some old sky blue teammates, like Sekope Kepu and Kurtley Beale, this weekend but he was never the type to get misty-eyed coaching against the Tahs.
He knows enough about the joint to offer a few words of warning in the Blues sheds this week, though.
History notes that a few days before Tom Carter pestered the Fray and sealed Halangahu’s fate, the Waratahs had suffered a tough loss at home to the Crusaders .
"They’re a good bunch and a proud bunch and we know they’re going to fire up and get into it,” Halangahu says.
"Losing to the Sunwolves in front of a home crowd, I know they’ll really want to come over here and do a job. They’re going to bounce back. I know that for sure.”
