LONG READ Freddie Thomas: 'OMFG, I've been selected for Wales - my mum was bawling her eyes out'

A crisp Monday lunchtime two weeks ago, and Freddie Thomas is whacking his way around Cotswold Hills Golf Club, trying to think about anything but the Welsh dragon in the room. This afternoon, Warren Gatland will announce his squad for the Autumn Nations Series, the first since Gloucester powerhouse Thomas had quietly nailed his colours to the Wales mast.

This was the land of his father’s family, the team he had grown up roaring on containing the players he had idolised; rather than England, where he was born, raised and played all of his rugby, including for the national Under-18s and U20s.

Nobody knew if Thomas’ strong early season form would compel Gatland to pick him. Thomas was clueless; waiting, hoping, ruminating – and slicing. Golf seemed like a sound distraction, but as the hour drew near, the yips took hold and his bottle crashed.

“I was with a couple of mates, not really focusing on what time it was, how close it was to 2pm, when the squad was coming out. I’d been told players got emailed half an hour before it was publicly named.

“At about 1.15pm I got a message from the Gloucester team manager Alex James congratulating me on selection. I was a bit like, what are you talking about? Gloucester aren’t playing this week? He said, ‘Oh, have you not heard anything? Sorry for ruining the surprise but I think you’re about to get an email from the WRU’.

“I was waiting for an email or a call and I played some pretty average golf. I definitely missed a couple of close putts. My head wasn’t in it. Eventually the email came through. I could never have seen this coming at the beginning of the season. All I wanted to do was play for Gloucester, get a good run of games. It’s been carnage.”

Within a minute, my mum was on the phone in tears, absolutely bawling her eyes out. I didn’t get many words out of her because she couldn’t put together a sentence.

A tricky round can reduce the best of us to tears, but the sight of a 6ft 5ins rugby player glassy-eyed down the back nine must have thrown a few patrons. Amidst the elation and adrenaline, the first thing Thomas did was post a message on the family WhatsApp chat. ‘OMFG, I’ve been selected for Wales’.

“Within a minute, my mum was on the phone in tears, absolutely bawling her eyes out,” he says. “I didn’t get many words out of her because she couldn’t put together a sentence.

“Then Dad called, who has been so important in my rugby career. When I said I wanted to play for Wales, he was right behind me. I could tell that’s what he wanted to happen the whole time. To be able to talk to him about it and hear how proud he was of me, I will remember that whole day and those phone calls for a long time.”

Like most young athletes, Thomas’ route to the Test arena was littered with chicanes and crossroads. At 17, he had grown weary of the game, no longer captivated by the thought of going pro and soured by the daily rigours of a Premiership academy. In his final years at Dean Close School, he thought long and hard about abandoning rugby altogether. A new coach, Andrew Stanley, arrived and jolted him back towards his dream.

“I’d done a couple of years at Gloucester and wasn’t really enjoying it. It felt more of a chore. I was getting into my hockey and enjoying it more than rugby.

“Andrew came in – he had worked with Gloucester before, and I loved the way he coached. He made me love rugby again, and really pushed me towards, ‘look, you could be a professional rugby player if you want’. He helped me turn it around and think rugby was something I wanted to do. He kickstarted it all, really.”

Five summers on, Thomas met his agents for a seminal discussion. He was 22 years old, with close to 40 senior outings for Gloucester and becoming a front-line lock forward at Kingsholm. He was ready to make his Test ambitions known.

“I went to school in England, in an English academy, and they’d put me forward to the England age-grade stuff. It was just easy for me to go down that route. I always knew I’d need to make a decision [about international allegiances] one day.

I said there and then, the dream is to play for Wales. A young 10-year-old Freddie would have said the same thing.

“It was always in the back of my mind to go to Wales. This summer I sat down with my agent who said, ‘Who do you want to play for? What is your end goal? Where are we going with this dream of yours?’ I said there and then, the dream is to play for Wales. A young 10-year-old Freddie would have said the same thing. That was the thought process. Reinforcing the decision was telling my family, and seeing their reaction, how happy my dad was that I wanted to play for Wales.”

None of this is to say Thomas was expecting the email at 2pm on the golf course. His body of work across the opening six rounds of the Premiership was simply too eye-catching for Gatland to ignore; the barnstorming carries, galloping runs and slick offloads; the three tries, the growing lineout nous and the big engine. Gatland, more than most, loves bruisers in his back-row and since he’s on the shorter side for a Test lock, might prefer Thomas on the blindside flank, where he can wreak more damage about the paddock.

Thomas drove up to the palatial Vale Resort for the first time last week with Josh Hathaway, one of four Gloucester team-mates selected this autumn, feeling a bit like Harry Potter arriving at Hogwarts.

“It was entering the unknown,” he says. “This is the next step up and you could feel it in the training. They’re short but tough, high-intensity sessions, lots of running metres, getting the body used to the stresses of international rugby.

“You definitely feel it. Even after the first session, I remember coming off the pitch feeling like I’d just played 80 minutes. I’d heard about that but it’s not until you’re actually there that you’re like, wow, this is how it is. Warren Gatland places a lot of emphasis on fitness – are you fit enough to go at it for 80 minutes at a high standard?”

Thomas turns 23 on Saturday, the day before Wales host Fiji in their November curtain-raiser. No prizes for guessing the gift he’d desire above all else. When it comes – if it comes – the debut will bring the family together in celebration. His father’s parents, from Dolgellau and Swansea respectively, will be beside themselves. Thomas will reflect on the graft he’s invested, but mostly on the time and the sacrifice and the belief given to him by the supporting cast.

“It would be absolutely everything. You’d take a moment to look back at all the hours you put in. Those days you didn’t want to turn up, didn’t want to train, didn’t want to go to rugby and do more of the same monotonous stuff. It would all be worth it.

“And for my family, all the times my mum and dad have driven me around the country, playing U14 games which didn’t really matter but they wanted to take me. All my school coaches who helped me along the way. I could go back and say thank you, and I probably wouldn’t be here without those people.

“I just want to have the opportunity to play in front of my dad. The feelings would be crazy. To have my whole family there, if the opportunity arose, to see them after the game – that would be the moment I would feel it had all paid off.”