It has been a rough week for Nick “I’m a goose” Phipps, but something hit our inbox this week that helped put the halfback’s bucks night antics in perspective.
Marie Murphy from Tuam, County Galway, in Ireland, read our story on Monday and wrote in about an unexpected act of kindness that affected her teenage son, Jayden.
“Jayden follows rugby teams worldwide and is especially keen on Super Rugby in Australia and New Zealand. He decided in January (our winter, which is very cold and wet) to keep his motivation for training up he would write letters to his rugby heroes. We didn’t realise at the time that he had Glandular Fever, so he had been struggling with his health,” Mrs Murphy wrote.
“He has written over 100 letters and including today’s mail has received 15 responses, many of which are signed autographs. However one response blew his mind, a response from Nick Phipps. Jayden wrote to two players from the Waratahs, Michael Hooper and Israel Folau. He knew Nick but he usually would only choose one or two from a club to write to. On Tuesday the 3rd of April he awoke to a parcel from Australia. Contained within the parcel was a handwritten two page letter from Nick, it is a very kind and genuine letter talking to a young boy about training rugby.”
Inside the parcel, Mrs Murphy told us, Phipps had put the Ireland jersey worn by Irish halfback Kieron Marmion in their November 2016 Test against the Wallabies. Phipps and Marmion swapped jerseys after the match. In a sweet twist, Marmion as a local hero in Jayden’s home town, playing for Connacht and Galway.