They have taken different roads since their days as best mates and midfield partners with Cardiff RFC, but Leigh Davies is in no doubt that Gareth Thomas will cope after revealing publicly he is HIV positive.
“He will handle it because he has the mindset of a champion,” said Davies, who won 21 caps next to Alfie in the Wales backline between 1996 and 2003.
“The diagnosis seems to have been with him for a while, and he seems to be doing fine. Whatever the doctors tell him to do, he’ll do it, whether that involves taking medication, eating differently, exercising or all of those things.
“It would have been a terrible shock when he learned of it.
“But he’s been through a lot and this is one more challenge that he’ll deal with.
“He’s a champion person and he’ll fight it like a champion.”
Thomas revealed this weekend he has had HIV for years, choosing to keep his diagnosis secret even from those closest to him.
He described how blackmailers had threatened him, with the former Wales and Lions captain saying he has been through a nightmare.
The threats forced the 45-year-old to break the news. Now he has told the world of his situation, saying via The Sunday Mirror: “I've been threatened by people who said they would give away my secret.
"I was being blackmailed and in my mind I thought you only get blackmailed for something really bad, which compounded the feeling of shame."
Davies has no doubt the public, especially in Wales, will be there to back Thomas.
“Of course people will support him,” he said.
“No one has any hang-ups with Alfie.
“He was the first rugby union player to come out as gay and he’s the first UK sportsman to go public about coping with this virus.
“I can understand him not wanting other people spreading rumours.
“The way to deal with a situation like that is to take back control, and that’s what he’s done.
“You have to take your hat off to him for leading by example in telling the world about this. It must have been tough.”
Davies continued: “The very mention of ‘HIV’ scares a lot of people.
“But it’s a situation many people deal with nowadays and maybe Alfie going public will do wonders in terms of education.
“It is sad that he felt he had to hide the diagnosis. I can’t speak for him, but it probably put him back into those dark days when he was hiding his sexuality from the world.
“But there are great treatment options out there for HIV.
“It isn’t what it was 20 years ago, because there are things you can take to manage it today.”
Davies and Thomas became close pals during their time together at the Arms Park in the second half of the 1990s. They had a reputation as party animals, playing hard on and off the pitch, with Thomas chronicling their exploits in his first book, Alfie!
“I loved that time,” wrote Thomas. “Leigh became such an outstanding mate, and we had some brilliant evenings.”
Sometimes their socialising would go on, and on, spanning more than 13 hours around Bridgend, according to Thomas.
Other Cardiff team-mates might join in closer to home.
“We had great fun,” laughed Davies.
“Martyn Williams and Dan Baugh would come out with us sometimes, too.
“We had fun on the field and off it. The game hadn’t long left the amateur era and players were still adapting to the new ways.
“Pretty much everyone liked Alfie, but I remember in one game, before he had come out as gay, someone was heckling him from the sidelines, calling him all sorts of names.
“Before anyone knew what was happening, Alfie was in the crowd taking this guy to task.
“We were playing the match and I was worried where the ball was, while my midfield partner was in the crowd squaring up to someone.
“I don’t know if anyone in the media reported the incident.
“But it carried on into the town in the night.”
Davies and Thomas are not in regular contact any more but Davies still has a lot of time for his old buddy.
“People just take different roads and we’ve lost touch a bit, but are still good mates,” said Davies.
“You see all these boxers and people from other sports and some of them are really famous, but what Alfie has is a quality possessed by few.
“He’s a people’s person, a people’s champion.
“You have all these sports people wanting to be loved, but most of them don’t have personalities and can’t relate to people.
“Alfie is about people first, second and third.”
And those heady days in blue and black still bring back fond memories for Davies.
He said: “We were unplayable as a team in one particular season.
“We had an outstanding team. Behind the scrum, for instance, there were the likes of Rob Howley, Neil Jenkins, me and Alfie, Nick Walne, Liam Botham, Mike Rayer, Craig Morgan, Rhys Williams and Justin Thomas.
“We just clicked in the centre.
“When you are mates with someone you just understand what he’s doing. Alfie was a really good player, with his strength and angles of running. It was a pleasure to play alongside him, while off the field he was a top man.”
In a chat with WalesOnline recently, Thomas spoke of how the reaction in Wales to his coming out as gay was a source of huge support.
“Welsh rugby was amazing with me,” he said.
“But more than that, Wales was brilliant.
“This is why my proudest moment was being born Welsh.
“It was the Welsh public who made the difference between me being successful and not being successful.
“They helped me be true to myself.”
In revealing to the world his HIV diagnosis, Alfie has been true to himself once more.
It’s the way he always prefers to be.
