Popular Welsh rugby referee Nigel Owens has revealed he was forced to watch Wales quarter-final triumph against France from a hospital bed.
“I had intended to watch last weekend’s Wales v France quarter-final on TV at our Tokyo hotel, in the company of my colleagues who had assisted me the day before for New Zealand versus Ireland,” wrote Owens in his column for Wales Online.
“As it is, I ended up watching the game on my mobile phone – whilst on a hospital bed!
🗞️ NEWS | Nigel Owens to referee All Blacks v England #RWC2019 semifinal.
— All Blacks (@AllBlacks) October 22, 2019
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“I get something called ulcerative colitis, a condition that affects your colon. It’s quite a common condition, which affects lots of people and comes and goes.
“I’ve had it on and off for 20 years, there’s no cure as such for it at the moment, you get medication to keep it in check. Very occasionally it will flare up, whether through stress, feeling tired, having a few beers, spicy food. No-one can be certain.
“Different things trigger it off, but when it does happen there is a kind of uncomfortable pain in the stomach area and the feeling of a need to go to the toilet the whole time. You feel you need to go there and then, or an embarrassing accident might happen.
“I had to get it checked out in a local Tokyo hospital, where they looked after me superbly and gave me some tablets and medication to settle it down. So there I was, on a bed in a side ward, on my phone watching Wales’ win over France.”