Angus Curtis aims to build on special moment

The 23-year-old’s progression has been curtailed by injury and Covid, but he has started the last three game’s, the highlight scoring against his dad David’s old team, Connacht

David Curtis won 13 Ireland caps in the early 1990’s, and played in the 1991 World Cup quarter-final when Ireland were minutes away from knocking out eventual winners Australia. His father, Arthur Curtis, was also capped three times for Ireland in the 1950 Five Nations Championship.

After finishing his international career in 1992 Curtis had another stint with London Irish before returning to his native Zimbabwe where Angus was born.

“Dad would have supported Connacht when I was growing up and now that I’m up here he has to support Ulster, remarked Angus.

“It was pretty cool to play against the team that my dad played for when he was over here. He hasn’t managed to get over, but I was on the phone to him after the game, as I am after every game, it was a pretty late kick-off so it was near midnight (in Zimbabwe).”

Naturally David was a big influence on Angus growing up.

“Rugby in Zimbabwe is a very popular sport, but everyone knows to become a professional to play in Europe or elsewhere, some people think it’s very far-fetched,” said Angus.

“He did it before the professional era and he was my motivation. He was very supportive in all our sports, obviously rugby and cricket were the two big ones.

“He was always the one driving us about, we would play with him in the garden when we were very young and then at 13 I headed off to boarding school in South Africa.

“He was very involved and still is now. I chat to him every day about what’s going on. He’s been out of the game for a while but he still has an input to give.”

Curtis sits out Ulster’s trip to the Dragons in the URC tomorrow afternoon, but he is hoping his bad luck with injury is at an end.

“I had a few injury problems, then I got back fit and was getting some other opportunities and then did my knee down at Leinster, which was a very long injury break,” he said. “It was a frustrating one because I got back from one setback, started to feel good and then that happened, and that was obviously a very long time off the pitch (due to Covid). I had to do a lot of creative training trying to keep my rugby brain ticking along.”