London | As the Australian team emerged on to the arena for their turn parading past the cheering throng at the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony in Birmingham on Thursday night (Friday AEST), one Aussie onlooker might have felt a particular pang of pride.

Scott Faulder is the head of product development at South Australian bootmaker RM Williams. It was his job to shepherd the athletes’ kit from design through to production, and to give it a patriotic Antipodean flavour.