Former Welsh international rugby player Rhys Thomas has revealed he abused drugs and was drank heavily while performing for club and country.
Thomas who only got seven caps as a prop forward opened up in a candid interview with the Catflap Chats podcast.
The former Scarlets star who nearly died after having a massive heart attack in January 2012 during a training session in Llanelli, he now relies on a mechanical pump to stay alive.
“I Hope by speaking out I will help other people so they do not go down the road I did. I would urge them to seek help.”
“They [World Anti Doping Agency] needed to know your whereabouts for an hour a day every day. I missed two tests,” he said.
Thomas was one more missed test away from a ban under doping rules.
He explained how he avoided the first test. “My time was six o’clock and I got in at about 5.50, melted. I must have easily had a couple of bags, sniffing, whatever, battered.
“I came in and literally, as my head hit the pillow, ding, ding and I looked at my phone.
“Six o’clock on the button, it could only be one person, on a Sunday morning. I looked out of the blind and it was like: ‘F***, briefcase w*****, he’s coming for me’.
“I just said to my missus: ‘Go down there and tell him I’m not here’.”
Thomas, whose nickname was ‘Stinky’, said he was pulled to one side by then Wales team manager Alan Phillips at national training the following day.
“Alan Phillips said: ‘Stinky, you missed a test’.
“I said: ‘Did I?’ He said: ‘Yeah, it’s an automatic strike, you didn’t tell them where you were’.
“I was like: ‘Never’.”
Thomas said “there were ways around” the testers from Wada and UK Anti Doping.
But he confided: “There were times I got tested where I thought: ‘I’m f***** here’. But nothing came up.”
