* This story was originally published in 2018. *
Being at the forefront of change runs in the Blyde family.
As Port Taranaki chairman from 1953 to 1974, Sir Henry Blyde led the push to build Blyde Wharf and Blyde Terminal as the port looked to develop its export business. That decision paid off as Port Taranaki became New Zealand’s number two export hub.
More than 40 years later, Sir Henry’s great-granddaughter Michaela Blyde is a superstar of women’s rugby and spearheading the rapid rise of the women’s game both nationally and internationally.
At just 22, Michaela is already a veteran of the Black Ferns women’s sevens team and her career reached stellar heights in 2017 when the speedy winger was named World Rugby’s sevens player of the year.
She is likely to be in the mix again this year having been an integral part of the team that finished second in the world sevens series, won the Commonwealth Games gold medal, and won the World Cup, with Michaela scoring a hat-trick in the final.
While she never met her great-grandfather, Michaela says hearing stories about his achievements is both humbling and inspiring as she forges a career in rugby.
“When I was about eight, my parents took us down to the wharf and took a photo of us with his concrete plaque. As kids it was hard to understand because we were young, but now as I’ve got older, the more stories you’re told it’s quite cool to hear how important he was with Port Taranaki,” she says.
“It’s really cool to have someone who’s that important in the family and someone who’s knighted as well makes me quite proud.”
Sir Henry would no doubt be similarly proud of his great-granddaughter’s achievements.
In 2013, at just 17, Michaela was called into the Black Ferns women’s sevens team and was a member of the Taranaki women’s 15-a-side team that played in the Farah Palmer Cup national provincial championship.
With Taranaki not having a women’s team the following year and with her sevens career taking off, Michaela made the decision to leave Taranaki and headed to Mt Maunganui, where the New Zealand sevens squad met for regular training camps. Now she is a fixture of the team as a contracted player and from next month the squad will train fulltime together as it is centralised in Mt Maunganui.
“My focus at the moment is to make the Olympic team in 2020 so I am concentrating on playing sevens and will hold off playing 15s until after 2020,” Michaela says.
She does, however, hope to one day don the amber and black again.
“I definitely have a plan of going back and playing for Taranaki before I retire, but for now, because of my sevens, it’s easier to be based in Mt Maunganui.”
CAPTION: Black Ferns Sevens star Michaela Blyde with a photo taken of herself, when she was about eight years old, and brothers Liam (left), Cole, and Christopher beside the plaque honouring their great-grandfather Sir Henry Blyde at Port Taranaki.
