My Life in Rugby: Thom Evans – Former Scotland, Glasgow and Wasps wing
I describe it almost like a fuse going out in your body. There wasn’t pain really and the lights didn’t go out. I just felt like my body had completely shut down.
The ball was spilt in contact and, in my head, I wanted to reach out for it but I couldn’t move – it was a disgusting feeling.
I was lucky I wasn’t knocked out, though, and I think staying conscious saved me from being paralysed because everything held together.
If I’d been knocked out my body would have relaxed and that would have damaged the spinal nerve which is automatic paralysis. I had a double fracture dislocation, the spinal cord had been a millimetre away from that.
I can never play rugby again, not even Sevens, I’ve tried to argue it but doctor James Robson has been pretty clear on that.
For a while, I’d always think about giving it a go but the more it played on your mind the more depressed I got so I try not to think about it.
I did some punditry at the World Cup in New Zealand for ITV but it was painful to be so close and so far away at the same time. Watching the Scotland games I got so stressed and so involved, particularly seeing my older brother Max in action.
I beat Max to a first Scotland cap in 2008 but he was still very supportive. We were on tour in Argentina and the first 40 minutes in Rosario flew by, I hadn’t had many touches and it was already half-time.
I got subbed with ten minutes to go when we were up but we ended up losing the game 21-15. I was dropped for the second Test but back for the autumn games and I played well which gave me a lot of confidence.
But I didn’t feel at home at international level until my fourth game against France, when I played with Max for the first time.
Having played together at Glasgow we knew what each other was going to do, or that’s what it felt like.
It helped massively that he was one position in from me in the centres. He was always creating a break out of nothing and I was able to read where he was going, he would get his hands free and I could then run a line off him.
I definitely played my best games with Max on the field and he says that playing with me brought out the best in him.
It’s tough for me now because I feel in better shape than when I was playing rugby but you have just got to go with what the doctors say.
I do a lot of sprinting and people, particularly in Scotland, talk about me competing in the Commonwealth Games in 2014 in the relay but I’m a long way off what’s required to sprint at that level.
I do it for my self-esteem and to keep fit, which also keeps me in shape for some of the modelling work I do. That and acting is more where I see my career going although one thing I won’t be going back to is the boy band!
It was great fun and as teenager there was nothing better than performing in front of 50,000 screaming girls but as my strength is dancing not singing I think it’s best to leave my pop star days behind.
