Australia’s towering newcomer Angus Blyth has lined up on field for the national anthems with the Springboks at Suncorp Stadium before.
Before you scratch your head and start pondering how the bolter of the 2024 season managed to pull that off before his July debut in gold, here’s the cool story.
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You always wonder how many of those kid mascots or junior flagbearers who take the field with teams actually progress through the ranks.
Back in 2013, Blyth won a Rugby Australia competition to hold the flag on field at the pre-game anthems. The South African flag.
There’s Blyth at just 15 in his blue and and yellow jersey proudly representing the Casuarina Beach Barbarians, the Tweed Coast club which has only been on the rugby map since 2002.
All those years at nippers in the march past team paid off.
He was a skyscraping 200cm at that age so he was looking down on then-Springboks skipper Jean de Villiers, who was standing beside him at a strapping 1.90m.
Unfortunately, the training time Blyth lost dealing with an infected cut has factored into him not being in the match day 23 for this Suncorp Stadium sellout.
His rise is no less remarkable because of it with plenty of opportunities ahead in The 2024 Flight Centre Rugby Championship.
It’s easy to be surprised that Blyth was picked at lock for the Wallabies against Wales and Georgia after just six matches for the Queensland Reds in Super Rugby Pacific this season.
That shortchanges everything he has put in and worked for over a much longer period.
He’d racked up more than 60 games of Super Rugby since his debut in 2018 to be the longest-serving lock in Aussie sides without Wallabies recognition.
Being selected to play Wales was something that caught the 26-year-old forward by surprise. You can’t train to be 2.08m and that size is clearly an asset.
“It’s been pretty crazy. I was not expecting to play even one Test this year,” Blyth said.
"To feel the trust from the coach and the team to play well is a really special feeling. I'm just loving being part of training and the whole Wallabies environment.
“There’s been a really good winning mentality within the squad for those Tests in July. For me, learning so much from the boys, the coaches and staff to improve my rugby has been really good.”
There was no time for Blyth to overthink his Test debut against Wales in Sydney. He was in a reserves bib warming up on-field at half-time when he got the shout "Blythy, get inside, you're on."
"There was no waiting, no time to get nervous, it was into the dressing room and straight on after half-time," he said.
As those at the Reds know, give Blyth a list of tasks and he’ll throw everything at them. Tackle low, hit rucks, switched on at every scrum, nail your lineout detail, know your role in a defensive maul 5m from your tryline … all the detail stuff that makes a difference.
You won’t see him scoring the try but he’ll be a backpack for a drive at the tryline or the guy who has made the chop tackle which allowed the pilfer to ignite a long-range raid.
Basically, a 122kg frame hiding in plain sight because he’s doing the graft of a good lock.
He had the ideal tutor from the outset with the standards drummed into him by 2011 World Cup-winner Brad Thorn, the All Black lock who was his Queensland Under-20s and Queensland Country coach before being his mentor as Reds coach.
Blyth was just 20 when thrust into his first Super Rugby match.
“A lot of us Queensland guys at the time came out of school, we were sort of thrust into Super Rugby and ‘Thorny’ sort of set us on the straight and narrow, behaviour-wise, on and off the field,” Blyth said.
“He’s been a great influence and it obviously helped with really specific coaching playing in the same position as him.
“This season under Les (Kiss), and the new coaching staff at the Reds, has been great. There’s a real positivity through the whole group. We played a lot of good rugby this year and there’s huge potential to keep improving in 2025.”
Blyth comes from good lock stock. You won't find a taller parent pair than Rob and Leanne Blyth.
His father played lock for Warringah in the Shute Shield after his time at Newcastle University. Wallaby Blyth has a good pedigree in other ways too.
From The Southport School, he follows in the footsteps of old boys Nathan Sharpe and Rob Simmons as a lock to have earned selection for the national team.
It’s a good thing he found rugby because he was no great shakes at soccer or basketball.
Having a balanced life has been vital in tackling those seasons where injury, suspension and non-selection have jolted his equilibrium.
He finished a Commerce degree at Bond University in February after seven years living the double life as footballer-student. He started that course as a John Eales Scholarship-winner so a few conversations with the Wallabies great have been a bonus over the years.
“The uni degree has been really important for me. You can get so focussed on rugby, it’s good to have another avenue to focus your brainpower on,” Blyth said.
“I’d been at the degree since 2017 so to graduate is great. I’m looking forward to using it in the future.”
Blyth's in-cabin baggage will be lighter should he make any of the Wallaby tours to Argentina, New Zealand or Europe this year.
“Throughout my years playing in New Zealand, I always had the uni degree on the side so studying for exams in the airport and doing assignments in the hotel room before a match was part of my touring,” Blyth said.
“It taught me to manage time which is a big skill.”
What a thrill to now have the Wallabies playbook to study.
