The Welsh Rugby Union's interim performance director Huw Bevan believes Wales Women can reach the semi-finals of the World Cup by 2029 but has warned it needs to start making more money to become sustainable.
In Wales, the women's game has been growing steadily since it turned professional in January 2022 thanks to then-performance director Nigel Walker, who oversaw the handing out of 12 full-time WRU contracts and around a dozen part-time deals after a number of years of contracts being spoken about by his predecessors. Now, 25 players are on full-time deals for 2023.
Under head coach Ioan Cunningham, Wales enjoyed have enjoyed two successful Six Nations campaigns, finishing third both last year and this year behind runaway leaders England and France, making significant improvements from campaign to campaign by becoming fitter, stronger and more skilful. They also reached the quarter-finals of last autumn's World Cup, being knocked out by world champions New Zealand.
READ MORE: WRU make historic appointment as independent chair revealed and new director joins board
By the time the next World Cup rolls around in 2025 in England, Wales will have been professional for a number of years and they should have a functioning pathway, with the U18s having been revived last year and three new development centres now being established for talents of the future, to run alongside an U20s programme. But looking ahead further, Bevan has revealed it is a target of the WRU for Wales Women to reach the semi-finals of the 2029 World Cup in Australia.
"I think the money is a concern because currently it doesn't generate any significant income to cover the costs but I think in the longer-term we envisage the women's game is going to go from strength to strength," Bevan told WalesOnline. "It will attract more sponsorship, attract more spectators, there'll be bigger gates, and eventually it will generate some income. In the meantime we do need to continue to support it.
"We are looking at a women and girls' strategy group from across the WRU in different departments, we are looking at a performance plan to take us through to the 2029 World Cup, and how we are going to achieve our performance objectives which is potentially reaching the semi-finals of the World Cup at that stage.
"There's a new board member who is going to have responsibility for the women's game so when she comes in we can present her with the current situation, an audit of everything across community, performance, commercial and so on. Then hopefully we can build a longer-term strategy moving forward. I think that is going to be crucial, having that strategy in place and the associated costs. What's the implications for the game moving forward? What do we need to do to make us successful for the World Cup in 2029 and beyond, and what's that going to cost?"
While the women's game has taken a giant leap forward at senior level, there remains a lot of work to be done at community level if it is to continue on an upward trajectory. Bevan acknowledges this and insists the WRU won't be resting on their laurels.
"I think what we've achieved in a relatively short period of time should be celebrated but we can't be sitting on our laurels," he said. "We are in it for the long haul. Working from the top down, the most exciting thing currently is the player development centres focusing on girls aged from 17-24. For me it's exciting they've been placed in the two biggest universities [Cardiff Metropolitan University and Swansea University, with another at RGC], maybe we'll have an opportunity to increase the playing population just by being in those environments. Also, we've got a lot of girls coming from the north as well, so those three development centres are going to give the girls an opportunity to develop their skills and equally, if not more importantly, their physical skills.
"There's been a high incidence across women's sport of injuries that occur due to limited physical capabilities, and by improving those physical capabilities we can offset some of those injuries. So, that's going to be a big part of that programme.
"We've got those three player development centres, and the ambition is to roll those out into other regions as well so by 2026 no high-potential player is more than 60 minutes away from a player development centre.
"What success at the top level will do is give us a shop window, and it gives us role models. We've got to create a pathway for a girl playing U13s to say 'okay, I can see my way from here to playing professional rugby for my country'. We do need to bridge the gap between the community game and the development pathway we are creating."
Bevan also believes the Celtic Challenge competition, which is financially supported by World Rugby, is vitally important for the women's game. With all of Wales Women's contracted players plying their club trade in England's Premier 15s to access the highest level of club rugby, it has long been acknowledged that it is unsustainable not to have a quality, domestic environment above grassroots level in Wales for women's players to access. Scotland and Ireland have similar issues, so all three unions joined together for an inaugural three-team tournament held this spring, but that will now increase to two teams per union next year.
"Last year there was a pilot with one team but next year the ambition is to expand that," he said. "World Rugby have done a review in expanding it to two teams from Ireland, Scotland and Wales competing to try to bridge that gap between club rugby in Wales, and the international stage which is quite a big gap. Underpinning that we also need to be better at identifying developing girls with talent, and whether that's from rugby environments or looking at talent transfer opportunities.
"We've identified girls with physical attributes in other sports we'd like to bring in. There's also another pilot scheme coming in with six schools and colleges to develop a competitive league."
READ NEXT:
Scarlets target signing of Junior All Black who qualifies for Wales
'More players, better players' — The radical WRU shake-up to save rugby in Wales revealed
The man who helped save famous Welsh rugby club from oblivion steps down
The new life of Paul James, the unsung rugby hero whose son now plays for Wales
