BUCKETS OF APPEAL Ospreys Adam Jones, Ryan Bevington, Filo Tiatia, and coach Jonathan Humphreys with Adam Mullany, who will be collecting for the Mullany Fund.

WALES captain Ryan Jones has spoken of his debt to physiotherapists who saved his playing career. The 27-year-old number eight feared his days on the field were over after two massive shoulder injuries.

He’s hoping rugby fans will dig deep at a bucket collection before The Ospreys’s sell-out match against the Scarlets this weekend.

Proceeds will be donated to The Mullany Fund, set up in memory physio Ben Mullany and his wife Cath.

Ospreys skipper Jones revealed: “My wife-to-be is a physiotherapist and we at The Ospreys are very much rely on the good work of doctors and physios.”

“I had two major shoulder injuries — at one stage there was a good chance that I would never play again. So, I owe it to the Ospreys’s physios I am still playing, which is why The Mullany Fund means a lot to me.”

Trainee physio Ben and qualified doctor Catherine Mullany, were killed in Antigua while on honeymoon earlier this year.

Their family and friends later set-up The Mullany Fund, with the aim to carry on the good work the couple had started.

Around 20 of the couple’s friends and family will be taking part in a bucket collection inside the Liberty Stadium for this Saturday’s Magners League match.

Ben’s brother Adam said the match would be particularly poignant because Ben and Cath were big Ospreys fans.

“The collection at the game this weekend means a great deal because Ben and Cath were big Ospreys fans,” he said.

“We have fond memories of going to see The Ospreys in France when they played against Bourgoin in the Heineken Cup last year.”

“It’s great the team that they supported is now supporting the fund.”

“We can never replace Ben and Cath, but we hope to carry on the good work they had started.”

[This story by Ben Wright originally appeared in the South Wales Evening Post.]

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