Welsh glory comes first for Thomas the try machine

The utility back is more interested in his team doing well than beating the record of Ieuan Evans

Whether on two legs or two wheels, Gareth Thomas is quick. The Wales wing even admits: "I love speed." That is why he is on the brink of buying a new motorbike with 1,000cc of roar, pace and power.

That is pretty much the opposition's verdict of Thomas when he's wearing a Wales jersey - raw pace and power. That pace has helped him reach a point where he is poised, possibly in the this year's Six Nations championship to become Wales' highest try scorer. He needs one more try to equal Ieuan Evans's mark of 33, which were scored in 72 Tests. Thomas has made the same number of appearances, but has the chance to make his own mark in Welsh rugby history. Not that he is bothered by that.

In fact he embodies one of the more traditional philosophies that best sums up rugby union, whether amateur or professional. "Just being mentioned in the same breath as Ieuan Evans is honour enough. Right now, whenever I take the field for Wales, or for the Celtic Warriors, I don't want anything for myself. Rugby is a team sport and I love the fact that you support other players and back them up on the field."

If he does break Evans's record, though, Thomas is honest enough to admit: "Much later on it will be something to look back on, say 30 years down the line, but it is not something that occupies me." What does occupy Thomas is the Rugby World Cup and how it will influence the Six Nations and specifically Wales, Scotland and Ireland.

"There is no doubt that this year's Six Nations is going to be one of the most important," Thomas says. In fact he predicts that the next four years will be crucial to rugby in the Northern Hemisphere and prefaces his statement with a remark that no right-thinking Welshman would utter ordinarily: "I'm kind of happy that England won the Rugby World Cup." He has not lost his mind, though: "Every championship for the next four years gives us a chance to topple the World Champions and have a go at the semi-finalists. Games against England are always big, but now there will be that extra bit of spice against both them and the French."

After their pulsating pool match against New Zealand, Wales proved that they could compete with the best and Thomas reveals: "We will remember that All Blacks match for the rest of our lives. It made such an impact on our performances and it was great for the players to have experienced a game like that."

Now Thomas, the captain of the Warriors, is upbeat about the Heineken Cup. Everyone had predicted doom and disaster with the new regional structure which has replaced the club game in Wales, but with Llanelli having qualified for the quarter-finals and Thomas's own region having just missed out, he is euphoric about the new set-up.

"In the past, with 12 clubs, a good player did not have to work too hard to keep his first-team place, now they have to compete hard for places and the result is a more competitive and professional environment, with every player perpetually having to raise their game in order to stay in the first team or in order to get into it." And that is what has helped in Europe according to Thomas.

"This is the strongest and the most exciting European Cup I have been involved in. Previously as clubs there was not enough strength in depth, now there is, and that has to be good for the national team." Not that he is going overboard about Wales chances in this year's Six Nations.

"I don't think, in the short term, that it will make much of a difference to Wales' prospects, but five or six years down the line when everything has settled down and youngsters have come through the more competitive system we now have then I think things will be far better for Wales. Players will have adapted better to professionalism by then." And perhaps the legacy of the New Zealanders Graham Henry and Steve Hansen will have begun to be appreciated. Thomas is unstinting in his praise for Hansen, not least because of the fact that Hansen is quitting at the end of the Six Nations.

But it is not that Thomas wants to see the back of the former Canterbury centre, far from it. As Thomas says: "Steve has helped me and he has changed my game, but that is because he understands things that happen off the field as well as on it and can talk them through with you." No, the thing about Hansen that really grabs Thomas is that the New Zealander is someone who can be trusted. "He is a man of his word," Thomas explains. "I respect him for sticking to his original decision to leave at the end of this Six Nations. The way things have been going recently he could easily have signed on for another few years. The Welsh public got on his back because of the poor results, but three years down the line it says how good he is and what he has achieved that he has won over the public. After that New Zealand match in the World Cup, when we returned home players were stopped in the street and people would say how great the performance was. And performance is something Steve has always gone on about.

"When a team puts in a performance, like the one we did against New Zealand it is crucial, because with performance comes confidence and in rugby that is a big thing, because eventually, with confidence, comes victory." It is a philosophy that Thomas and his Wales colleagues will take into this year's Six Nations and the opposition would be advised to avoid uttering the words "On yer bike!" The consequences could be breathtaking.

WALES FACTFILE

Coach: Steve Hansen

Captain: Colin Charvis

Assistant coach: Scott Johnson

Fitness coach: Andrew Hore

Team manager: Alan Phillips

Ground: Millennium Stadium (capacity: 73,000)

Anthem: Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau

Triple Crown wins: 17 (1893, 1900, 02, 05, 08, 09, 11, 50, 52, 65, 69, 71, 76, 77, 78, 79, 88)

Grand Slam wins: 8 (1908, 09, 11, 50, 52, 71, 76, 78)

Biggest win: Wales 49 France 14 (1910)

Biggest defeat: Wales 0 France 51 (1998)

WELSH MEMORY - GERALD DAVIES (1966-78, 46 caps)

Gerald Davies has a problem. The wing wizard from Llansaint who scored 20 tries for Wales in a 12-year, 46-cap career in the famous red shirt in the glory years of the 1970s can't pick out his favourite memory of the Five Nations' Championship.

"I've been asked that question many times over the years now, and it's very difficult to bring it all to one point." he says. "It's the whole excitement of the championship itself that I remember. Come Christmas you were always preparing for a Five Nations campaign, and that gripped the imagination of everyone. Everybody says that my era was a golden era for Welsh rugby. And I suppose it was because we won five Triple Crowns and three Grand Slams in that time. In those days it was Wales and France who supplied the big game, not England.

"But I've said over the years that if any visitor came to Wales and wanted to see what this game of rugby was about, and if I had to choose a game to go and show him, I'd go for Wales against Scotland, because I can't think of one that I was involved in that wasn't exciting. In 1971, we won right at the very end [Davies modestly fails to point out that he scored the vital try, converted by John Taylor]. There was a game a couple of years later when we lost 10-9, when we scored in the corner right at the end, and had we converted we would have won. That was a terrific encounter.

"And then in 1977, when Phil Bennett scored his great try after Scotland had put Wales under intense pressure for 10 minutes. Those three stick in my mind, as well as my last one in Cardiff in 1978. It was so cold, I was left out on the wing, we won the game and I was so glad to get off."

Martin Pengelly