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It’s been almost as long-awaited as another Wales Triple Crown victory.

But finally it seems Hollywood hardman Mickey Rourke’s much-hyped rugby movie is to make it off the side-lines, with shooting being officially scheduled to kick off next February.

Sadly for fans of former Wales international Gareth Thomas, however, it seems The Wrestler star’s won’t be playing him after all. At least not this time around .

The 61-year-old New Yorker recently confessed on camera that he was due to start filming a drama about the Welsh national game in early 2015 – except with all the Welshness taken out.

“Tell us about your new project,” he’s asked by a roving female reporter in one recent online clip.

“It’s a rugby movie called Irish Thunder,” replied Rourke, hidden behind dark glasses and a hoodie.

“Let me guess, you play someone Irish,” replies the reporter, to which the actor deadpans, “How did you guess.”

Then, when quizzed if the Alfie project he’s been reportedly working on for the last several years is still a going concern, Rourke replies, “Yeah, but I’m not talking about that, this is another one I’m doing first.”

And while very little information seem so exist regarding the plot of this latest cinematic venture, the relocation of the sporting action to the other side of The Irish Sea should prove a disappointment to fans of both Rourke and Thomas .

Indeed the one-time hellraiser has been talking up his labour of love Alfie biopic – speculatively titled The Welshman – to anyone who’d listen since he first read an article about the ex-Cardiff Blues player’s coming out in 2010.

What is more, the Bafta-winning and Oscar-nominated star was photographed leaving a Beverly Hills gym in May looking match fit and ripped, leading many to speculate that he’d already begun a gruelling physical transformation in preparation for the homegrown role – one which Rourke has often dubbed “the most important part” of his career so far.

Look: Mickey Rourke works out

“This is an incredibly important story about equality and it’s something I want to make happen,” he’s gone on the record as saying.

No stranger to plastic surgery since his stint as a boxer in the early ‘90s, Rourke even been rumoured to have had his latest bouts of facial reconstruction specifically to make him look more like Thomas and to defy the detractors who claim he’s already too old to properly portray the professional athlete of the Sarn man’s calibre.

In the meantime though, while an Alfie movie may remain in development limbo, anyone eager to see his life-story immortalised will have a buy a ticket to the theatre instead.

The 39-year-old full back’s struggle with his sexuality is to be portrayed on stage in Crouch Hold Pause Engage, a new play currently being put together by London-based company Out Of Joint and National Theatre Wales.

“Just leaving from hearing the read through of the play of my life,” Thomas tweeted last month.

“Humbled and very very proud. Thanks.”

And while the casting of someone to play the man himself remains under wraps, Loose Women presenter Denise Welch has jokingly put her name forward to portray Thomas‘ mother in the production.

“Who’s playing your mum, Gareth” she tweeted.

“You offering?” replied Thomas.

“Indeed I am,” she wrote back.

“I give good Welsh.”

Read more: Gareth Thomas to star in Cardiff pantomime