Thomas was brought into the fray in the second half, with Wales in desperate need of a lift at the lineout and scrum, where they were being outmuscled and outplayed.
With captain Ryan Jones’ late withdrawal from the squad, it meant a reshuffled back line but Thomas watched the first hour from the bench before running on to earn his landmark 50th cap,
“I would have preferred to have started the game and to have won on my fiftieth cap but I’m really delighted to get that achievement. Many great players never reached that milestone it is an honour. But the game overshadowed it a bit.”
He continued: “To say we are disappointed is an understatement. We had problems as a team and we are disappointed and embarrassed by the performance.
“It was a very fast and physical game but it is always like that when you play the top teams. We lost a lot of the 50/50s in the air and lost out in lots of contact situations.
“That is something we have been pretty good at over the last two years so we were disappointed. They were hungrier than us. I don’t know why we played like that because we’ve played in plenty of games as a group now. The game didn’t show the difference between the teams – we just lost the battle on the day.”
