Thomas is a trouble magnet
The red shirt that Welshman Will Thomas wears must have been made from the rag that a bull loved. For trouble is following the Hong Kong Sevens debutant around and around.
On Friday, Thomas was the victim of a foul by Russian Murat Uanbayev, who became the first player to be cited at the Hong Kong Sevens under the new IRB rules. Yesterday, there was another citing with West Indian captain Derek 'Bobby' Hurdle coming under the censure of big brother - citing commissioner Steve Hines - up in the stands. And guess who the victim was? Yes, Thomas again.
'Trouble seems to be following me around,' laughed Thomas yesterday. 'It was a bit of bad luck really. On the first day the foul was intentional. But I guess the West Indian was a bit unlucky.'
Former Hong Kong Rugby Football Union secretary Peter Else, who is the final arbiter on the citing panel, joked: 'Obviously someone does not like him.'
Thomas has been a regular with the Welsh sevens outfit this season, having played at both the Sevens World Cup in Argentina in January and last month's Wellington Sevens, the third leg of the World Sevens Series.
'This is my first season in sevens and I'm enjoying it hugely. Coming to Hong Kong is a dream. The atmosphere is just awesome and it is some experience,' said the 23-year-old forward, who plays for Cross Keys in the Welsh Premier Division. Thomas, and Wales, came to Hong Kong without much fanfare. But yesterday they came close to pulling off what would have been an upset of seismic proportions against Fiji.
'We are all gutted. We came so close to making it into the Cup quarter-finals,' said Thomas, reflecting on his team's 10-5 loss.
But Welsh coach Colin Hillman paid tribute to Fiji for never giving up, especially when they were down to six men after Alifereti Doviverata was sin-binned just before the break.
'All credit to Fiji for preventing us from scoring. We just couldn't take advantage of that one-man deficit. But today we proved that we can compete with the best in the world,' said Hillman. 'We are pleased with the way we played, but at the same time hugely disappointed.'