Wales' 32-player squad destined for next month's Women's Rugby World Cup in New Zealand has been announced, with the side heading into the tournament with the best preparation in its history.
The professional era began in January with 12 full-time players but head coach Cunningham has had a full-time squad to work with since July. A brutal pre-season preceded two heavy warm-up defeats, admittedly to two women's rugby heavyweights in England (73-7) and Canada (31-3), but the Welsh camp are of the firm belief they've learned a lot and want their performances down under to do the talking.
Wales Women kick off their World Cup against Scotland on October 9, also facing Australia and world champions New Zealand in the group stages.
Read more: The full Wales squad for Women's Rugby World Cup
Here's everything Wales boss Cunningham had to say after naming his squad:
Question: Ioan, were there difficult conversations to be had in selecting this squad?
Ioan Cunningham: Yeah it was a difficult conversation, especially in some positions. It was a daily conversation as coaches as we built up to that point.
We’re pleased with the squad we’ve settled on, and we’re looking forward to how we can perform in New Zealand.
I can’t wait, I just want to get on with it. It’s been a big build-up so it’s important that what we do next is right and we get those steps in place before we face Scotland.
Q: Was Siwan Lillicrap always going to be your World Cup captain?
IC: I think she’s a massive part of this group, not only before my time but what she’s done with this group of players, what she’s done outside of the environment, here in our environment, and also on the field. There was no doubt in my mind that Siwan was the one to lead us into this competition.
Q: Are you happy with the blend of experience and youth?
IC: You always want more experience, it doesn’t matter what squad you’re in. But what’s important is that the players take this opportunity with both hands, express themselves and also lean on players that have been there before.
What’s new, as well, is the structure of this tournament from previous tournaments. They were quite short turnarounds, like four-day turnarounds, three-week tournaments. This is a proper six-week tournament with six or seven-day turnarounds, so it’s different, to manage your time and understand how to build a performance week so it’s going to be a fantastic opportunity for us and we can’t wait.
Q: Have you set any targets?
IC: It’s game by game. If you do well in your first game, it builds momentum. If we manage to get a win in the first game then it sets us up to give us a good chance to get out of the pool. But it’s all about that first game.
I think it’s going to be one hell of an event with massive attention, which is fantastic. A global event, talent on show, great skill level - I think it’s going to be one of the best competitions that’s been around. I’m looking forward to New Zealand, full of rugby, love rugby, great people. I can’t wait.
Q: Warm-up results haven’t been great - does that matter now?
IC: No, I don’t think it does.
I know the England game wasn’t great regarding points conceded but those are World Cup warm-up games. We learnt a lot about each other and our group during the last four or five weeks. What’s important now is Scotland and how we can perform that day. That’s what matters.
Q: How long will it take for Wales to play the likes of England and be seriously competitive?
IC: I don’t want to say an exact figure but I think you can see the strides we’ve made from January through to March and April, in a short space of time. To kick on to the next level, I think it’ll happen fairly quick, I really do, I believe that.
In the next 12 months I think you’ll see a big shift and even in 18 months regarding evolution of the squad, what type of athlete do we want moving forward to the 2025 World Cup, and that’s where we can really put the work in in the next few years to see what the side looks like and what we want.
Q: What has impressed you most in pre-season and the warm-ups?
IC: From a conditioning point of view, we’ve grown immensely. The girls have pushed themselves harder than I’ve seen them work which is pleasing, and that’s something that we wanted to instil in the group, that when you’re away from home and you might be under the pump, you can always look back to July and think ‘well, it’s not as bad as July so we can get through it’, it’s getting that mindset that we can get through dark times. It’s a tough thing to measure but I think it’s something that’s evident in our group when you work with them daily.
I think we’ve grown in our kicking game and grown confidence there, especially kicking from 10 and our exits.
Another focus area where we’ve got to stay on top is nailing our opportunities, and that’s something we’ve got to keep working hard at. Six line breaks against Canada, three points. We have about five opportunities against England in the first half, we came away with seven points. If we convert them, then suddenly we’ve got close to 20 points a game, you’re in bonus-point range and it puts you in a position to win.
Q: What other areas will you be focusing on for improvement?
IC: Keeping hold of the ball in critical areas. If we turnover ball and we end up defending and running backwards and trying to put fingers in the dam, pressure’s on top of us. Ball retention is one, and being a bit more patient with it.
Q: There is perceived pressure that you haven’t resolved your No. 10 position - how are you feeling about that situation?
IC: I think our kicking game has improved since the Six Nations. We definitely had further kick metres against Canada, I think against England we had a couple of good exits so we are kicking further. Our variety of kicks is still something to work on from an attack point of view, but I think it’s definitely an improvement, but it’s something we’ve got to strive for, to compete with the top four in the world as we move forward, aim to get length in your kick.
The other thing is growing kickers in the team. Our 10s can kick, and 9s. But can our 15s kick with confidence? Can our wingers? That’s the next level we’ve got to get to over time.
Q: There's great detail around the driving lineout and scrum but presumably the desire to want players to express themselves come from confidence in ability all-round?
IC: It’s expressing themselves within our framework and our structure. We put a framework in place but we’ve got to play what’s in front of us and react to pictures and players. That’s something we’re encouraging this group to do.
We’ve got fantastic talent amongst our players so go out there and show it, make sure you know your detail and you’re in the right place, work hard off the ball, once something happens we have to react and respond and come alive.
Q: Have you done enough before that Scotland game?
IC: We’ve done a load of training so it’s about putting it on the field now. We’ll narrow our focus regarding what Scotland offer us from a threat and opportunity point of view. We’ll start building that in over the next three weeks before we play them, which is still quite a long time.
Our preparation has to be right as well. I think a lot of teams are arriving in New Zealand quite early. We will help each other out. I think some teams will want competitive training sessions. We’re going to look to do something against USA in that first week so we don’t go three weeks without anything.
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