Ifan Phillips: Ospreys hooker overwhelmed by support and hopes to walk again
- Published
Ifan Phillips is a former Wales Under-20s hooker and was part of the 2016 Grand Slam-winning squad
Ospreys hooker Ifan Phillips says he has been "overwhelmed" by the support he has received and wants to walk again as soon as possible.
The 25-year-old had his leg amputated after a road traffic collision involving two motorcycles in December.
A crowdfunding page set up to help Phillips in his rehabilitation has so far raised more than £76,000.
"The whole rugby community has been a huge support," Phillips said.
"Many teams have sent signed shirts to help me raise money and more recently a young boy, Callum Powell, has been running 5k to raise money to go towards a prosthetic leg and rehabilitation.
"He was one of the supporters who would always come to games with his mum, grandfather and grandmother.
"I would often go over and speak to them after a game so it was overwhelming to hear that he wanted to raise money."
Phillips, the son of former Neath and Wales hooker Kevin, played 40 games for Ospreys and trained with the Wales squad last summer.
"As you can imagine it's been a pretty tough few weeks for me and the family with everything," Phillips told the Ifan Evans programme on BBC Radio Cymru.
"But I'm feeling positive now, trying to keep fit and busy as much as I can
"I go to the gym daily with my friend Josh. We go every morning at 7:30am to keep myself busy and to stop me from sulking in the house too much."
The Ospreys hooker has now set his sights on walking again with the help of a prosthetic leg.
"There's a specialist clinic that specialise in prosthetics in England and I'm going back and forth there weekly," Phillips added.
"I'm hoping that in a few weeks maybe the leg will be healed enough to put a socket on it and then hopefully I can walk before long.
"It's been a strain on my friends and my family because they've got to take me everywhere and I can't do a lot of things around the house.
"There's a lot of hard work and I'm looking forward to putting the leg on and getting back to some sort of normality and doing things on my own."
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