Steve Tandy did not pick Freddie Thomas for his latest Wales squad, and Gloucester's 23-5 win over Bath made that omission look increasingly hard to defend. This was not the sort of performance you file away politely and forget. It was the sort that forces a selector to glance back at his notes and wonder whether he has left something obvious on the table.
At Kingsholm on Saturday, October 24, Thomas delivered exactly the kind of display international coaches say they want and then, for reasons that quickly become annoying, sometimes ignore. The 24-year-old made 18 tackles, 18 carries and scored a try in a victory that kept Gloucester top of the Gallagher Prem. In other words, he did just about everything a forward can do in a brutal West Country derby without needing the benefit of a highlight reel to explain it.
A blindside performance that demands attention
Thomas has spent most of this season at blindside flanker rather than lock, and the switch is clearly not hurting him. On current evidence, it is helping him look even more complete. Eighteen tackles is serious work. Eighteen carries is even better. Add the try and you get the kind of all-action outing that should make selection conversations uncomfortable for everyone else in the frame.
That matters because Wales are not exactly short of names to discuss, but they are always short of time to ignore form. Steve Tandy's latest decisions are already under scrutiny, and Thomas has just produced a game that strengthens his argument in the most direct way possible: by being impossible to miss. If you are trying to build a squad on energy, urgency and output, it is difficult to look past a player who keeps delivering both the dirty work and the decisive moments.
The wider point is even simpler. Gloucester won, stayed top, and Thomas was central to it. This was not a cameo. It was not a bit-part flourish. It was a statement performance in a match that mattered, against a rival that mattered, at a time when every selection call is being weighed far more closely than usual.
WalesOnline has already reported the sort of changes Steve Tandy is prepared to make elsewhere, and the message there is clear enough: form can move quickly from one week to the next. Thomas is now in the awkwardly obvious category. Leave him out and the decision needs explaining. Pick him and it looks like common sense. Either way, Gloucester have done the shouting for him.
For Tandy, that is the uncomfortable truth. For Freddie Thomas, it is the better kind of problem: keep playing like this, and the door does not stay shut for long.
