initialFirstResponder not getting the focus ring on start

Question

I set the initialFirstResponder of window in my AppDelegate on launch (to a custom NSTextField). I expected that this would cause the NSTextField derivative to launch with the blue focus ring around it - it does NOT. Only on a single TAB from the keyboard does this become the case...

I have worked around this by doing the following:

    window.initialFirstResponder = customTextField
    window.makeFirstResponder(window.initialFirstResponder)

but the above just seems wrong - like I'm doing the same thing twice.