Published Sunday, 14 May 2000 - THE INDEPENDENT
Arwel Thomas is not going to Canada with the Wales development squad this summer. Instead he is going to China with a club called the Penguins. When you are no longer the flavour of the month, or even the millennium, they put you on a slow boat to Shanghai with a flightless bird.
A couple of things then happened to the baby-faced destroyer. First his wife Clare gave birth to a daughter, Nia. "It's a big part of my life. It means more responsibility and I have to plan my time around her." And Phil Richards, Swansea's fitness coach, introduced the squad to a series of cassettes, containing comments from sportsmen like Muhammad Ali, Rocky Marciano and Pele, which are designed to give the players something to think about."I have been listening to Ali talking about taking risks and that you won't get anywhere if you don't," Thomas said. "You take bits out of it and use it in your training schedule. Something seemed to gel. I think it's helped to dig us out of a hole. Certainly, over the last three months we've been performing a lot better and all of a sudden my belief is back. I haven't spoken to anyone about it, I'm not that type of person. I just believe I can do it again. You live and learn
