If circumstances had been different and fate not played a hand, Rhydian Roberts could well be a household name not for his incredible talent as a singer and performer but as an international rugby player for Wales. The image-conscious Gavin Henson would then have had a real rival.
Rhydian, the 2007 runner-up in ITV’s The X Factor and who is set fair for a remarkable career, has a deep and abiding passion for rugby which almost transcends that of music and performing. When talking about the sport and his memories, he becomes animated. Like any boy in Wales he had a love of rugby and singing and was fortunate enough and blessed with sufficient ability to pursue both.
He showed real potential as a teenager at Llandovery College, the alma mater of Alun-Wyn Jones, of the present Wales side, as well as a host of eminent internationals down the years, Gwyn Jones, Geoff Evans, Vivian Jenkins and Cliff Jones among them. His ambition was to emulate his hero, Scott Gibbs, a barrelling powerhouse of an inside centre whose exploits, not least with the Lions in South Africa in 1997, are the stuff of legend.
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“That tour was really inspiring,” Rhydian said in an exclusive interview with The Times. “We watched every game at school and I’ve watched the Living with the Lions video over and over again.”
Rhydian was once not dissimilar to Gibbs physically. Unbelievable to look at him now, the singer with the amazing bleached blond hair weighed 16½ stone at the peak of his sporting prowess when he represented and captained District F — in essence Carmarthenshire — and played alongside Dwayne Peel, the Wales scrum half.
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“Dwayne probably would not remember me. I played with him two or three times and trained with him a lot,” he said. Rhydian was solid muscle, having been a gym fanatic who could bench-press 386lbs at 16. It was this pursuit that would end his rugby dream.
But let us go back to the beginning. Roberts was born in Brecon in 1983 into a family that lived and breathed rugby. Still does. His father is a debenture holder at the Millennium Stadium. He first picked up a ball and ran at the age of 3, after which his uncle started to teach him how to spin pass.
He can clearly remember being given his first pair of boots. “They had moulded studs,” he recalled wistfully. As well as playing, he collected match programmes and accumulated more than 1,000. “I was totally passionate about all aspects of the game,” he said. “I used to watch footage of the Wales side from the 1970s, which was inspirational.
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“My first rugby international was in the 1991 World Cup between Wales and Argentina. My favourite game was the 10-9 victory over England by Wales at the Arms Park when Rory Underwood lost the plot and allowed Ieuan Evans to race past him to score a great try.”
After primary school Rhydian went to Llandovery College, the Welsh equivalent of Colston’s or Millfield. “I experimented with a few positions,” he said. “As a kid I was a forward. I was a right rough bugger. I played in the school first XV at the age of 15 and one particular memory was of beating Brecon’s Christ College. It was prestigious to be in the first XV. That game was huge and we won.
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“I also played against James Hook. I am friends with Gareth Edwards and know Gerald Davies. His son, Ben, was a prefect at my school. I wanted to be an international. Dad was thoroughly supportive and many people thought that was a route I would go down.”
So too did Phil Davies, the head of rugby at the college. “He was a very, very good player. Big, strong, fast and with good hands,” Davies said. “If he had stayed with rugby he would definitely be in one of the regional teams and with the right coaching and the right environment he could have gone all the way. He could have been another Scott Gibbs.
“He formed a formidable centre pairing with Rhodri Gomer Davies, now with the Dragons. He was an exceptional boy, very intelligent and from a lovely family. He was very determined. He was always going to make it somewhere.
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“He keeps in touch and two years ago came back to give a concert in the school hall to help to raise funds for our first XV tour to South Africa. I also remember a great couple of nights with him in Dubai at an international schools rugby festival. Llandovery were representing Wales and at the end each school had to perform a song. Of course, Rhydian sang for us. He was brilliant.”
However, before he could really fulfil his sporting potential, fate intervened. At 16, Rhydian suffered a bad groin tear when doing squats in the gym. It kept tearing and he began to lose pace and fitness.
“When I make up my mind to do something, I do it 100 per cent,” he said. “I trained my arse off. But I got too big and too slow. It got to a stage when I had to ask myself what am I better at and what will give me a career. I had to choose. I was playing on a Saturday afternoon and singing and performing in the evening. I did both for a while but it was unsustainable. At 16 I really thought I could go all the way. Swansea were taking an interest. But by 17 I knew I was not going to be good enough to be an international.”
It was then that music and singing took over seriously. “I used to be a boy soprano and had quite a good ear. One day my mum [Angela] came home and said she had tickets for the opera, Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers. I was 14. I said, ‘Do I have to go?’ She said, ‘Yes.’ I went and fell in love with the music. When I got back home Dad asked how it went. I said amazing and started singing bits from it.”
From there he started voice training as well as taking up the trumpet and cornet, and after school, at which he took music A level, and a gap year in Pretoria as an assistant coach at St Alban’s College, he enrolled in the Birmingham Conservatoire from where he applied for The X Factor.
“You have to take risks in life,” he said. “I did when I applied. People were very snooty about things like The X Factor when I was there. I didn’t tell anyone but I wanted to work and thought, ‘Why not?’ ”
The gamble paid off and after finishing second, despite being the bookmakers’ firm favourite, Simon Cowell signed him to the Sony BMG label. During the competition he sang World in Union, the World Cup theme song to reiterate his passion for the game. “If I can combine singing with rugby at any time I will,” he said.
That opportunity may come sooner rather than later. Negotiations are under way for him to perform the Welsh anthem Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau during the RBS Six Nations Championship at the Millennium Stadium and also at Jason Robinson’s testimonial dinner in March, schedules permitting. “For me, being out on the hallowed pitch nothing could be more moving or emotional. And I don’t mind if Katherine Jenkins is with me!”