Jonny left me dazed but I don't blame him

The 25-year-old Osprey will start at blindside flanker against Scotland in Cardiff on Saturday and is hoping to last considerably longer than he did in the RBS Six Nations opener at Twickenham last Saturday. There, he was on the charge in the 12th minute when Wilkinson's attempted tackle left him temporarily unconscious, dazed and bloodied.

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After the match, it was widely anticipated that Wilkinson would face disciplinary action for his out-of-character act of aggression bordering on violent conduct, but the citing officer decided that the incident had been an accident.

The victim agreed with that verdict on Thursday, guarding against any accusations of hypocrisy by showing that he could take punishment as well as occasionally dish it out.

'I've got nothing against the tackle,' he said. 'A lot has been made of whether he was going to be cited, but I've got no hard feelings towards Wilkinson whatsoever.

'I think it was a fairly legitimate tackle. It was just an unfortunate situation where I was quite low, where I got caught on the chin and I'm certainly not going to complain about things like that.

'I've done things in the past where I have possibly high tackled people, so you can't expect to have double standards and moan when it happens to you.'

Thomas's reasonable response to the matter is all the more commendable given his circumstances. As a player who has so often been on the fringes of the Wales XV, he hadn't started a Six Nations match since making a try-scoring contribution to the victory over Italy during the Grand Slam campaign in 2005.

As such, the match at Twickenham potentially represented a watershed moment in his Test career. So for it to be cut short for him must have been painful in more than just the physical sense. Having suffered a couple more blows to the head after Wilkinson had delivered his right hook, Thomas's recollection of events is decidedly blurred.

'I haven't got a great memory of the actual incident,' he said. 'I remember the 12 minutes leading up to it. For a while I was groggy and not sure where I was or what was happening. It didn't help that my head hit Toby Flood's knee, then hit the floor and then there was a ruck on top of me!

'I have had incidents like that before when I have been dazed, but I have never come off the field before. It did cross my mind that I might be ruled out for the Scotland game, but because I came round so quickly afterwards I was pretty positive that I would be able to make myself available for this week.'

Anyone suffering a blow to the head of that magnitude in years gone by would have been required to take a mandatory three week break. But the IRB have since amended their guidelines on concussion to allow each case to be treated on its merits, much to Thomas's relief.

'The process I went through was very thorough,' he said. 'There was a lot of medical back-up to prove I'm 100 per cent fit. I'm just glad the three-week rule for concussion isn't there any more. I feel good and ready to go for the weekend. You could say I'm fresh considering what the rest of the boys went through.'