Following their historic match against the Barbarians at the Principality Stadium, Wales women’s head coach Chris Horsman and captain Siwan Lillicrap discussed the future of the women’s game and the strategic plan it has.
Barbarians’ game of two halves
Chris Horsman (CH): “Yeah, in the first half there were some defensive errors and we didn’t trust and back ourselves enough. We conceded those tries, one off the kick off that was soft.
“When it went multi-phase, with the size of their back five, their scrum and their heavy ball carriers, if it went multi-phase, we weren’t missing tackles, but we just having to double up in the tackle and losing width in our defensive line.
“We have to execute within two or three phases, both sides of the ball. We have to have confidence in our line speed to go and shut them down and force skill errors, which we did.
“With ball in hand we had to get into space as quickly as possible, and the girls executed it. I said at the half, we have to play a 40 minute game and get back to doing what we’ve done over these last four games.
“It wasn’t just character that got scored them three tries and nilled the BaaBaa’s in that second half, it was very good tactical awareness and some excellent rugby execution.”
Great to see so many new caps following autumn campaign
CH: “It’s massive [capping new names], there were seven new caps against a team made up of some of the best players of the best nations in the world. It shows even with a young group and blooding strength in depth we can compete with the best teams in the world.”
Strategic plan set out for women’s game
CH: “Ultimately, as fantastic as the historic occasion was playing in the stadium it was fantastic to see the supporters coming in and hopefully they saw what we were about.
“It’s part of a long term strategy and journey. We’ve got 2021 with the World Cup and it’s about constantly improving. As long as after each performance and training session we have moved forward then we’re on the right path.
“It’s about going into the autumn series with clear objectives. One was to grow the depth of talent and two was to close the performance gap to the best teams and players in the world. I think today we certainly evidenced that.”
“There’s been a strategic review of the women’s game. It’s multi-strand, it’s about the Six Nations, 2021 and 2025, but there’s also the Sevens strand that falls into that.
“With the pool of players we have and the resources of coaching we’ll look to do something different and exciting with both the Sevens and XV’s in how we can get a hybrid programme that services both those games with what we want to achieve.
“It’s working back from 2021, we knew exactly what we wanted from this campaign – the depth in leadership, depth in player pool, closing the performance gap, raising expectations and standard of ourselves.”
“A couple of things I’ve learned from working with the women’s game is the importance of territory. So looking at how we implement that for the Six Nations.
“It’s like British Rowing and the saying they had, ‘Does it make it go faster, if it does we’ll do it and if it doesn’t we wont bother.'”
Lillicrap and Wales send message ahead of Six Nations
Siwan Lillicrap (SL): “We showed a lot of character and belief. If you look at our games before we’ve gone out in the first half and put out a great performance and then taken our foot off the gas. Today was the complete opposite of that.
“Message at half time from myself was clear, lets concentrate on us and let’s not play a Barbarians style of rugby ourselves or worry about the occasion. We got off the line and suffocated them and then we showed some great attacking play.
“When we can do that for 80 minutes then we’re going to be very dangerous.”
Proud day for the women’s game
SL: “You probably did see a tear in my eye [during the anthem]. It’s hard to control your emotions at that point. It’s an honour to put on that jersey, never mind play in this stadium alongside your best mates.
“Whenever we go out we want to do the jersey and nation proud. It’ll be a moment I’ll treasure and remember for life.”
Crowd an extra player as they filtered in ahead of men’s game
“As soon as that crowd started coming in and got behind us you’ve got another player on the pitch and that goes a long way. We wanted to create memories and put a stamp on what we’re about, show Wales what path we’re on and where we’re going.
Debutants have it better than ever
SL: “It’s always an honour to put on that shirt and it’s never a given right. It’s a privilege and we’ve worked hard to earn that, everyone is stepping up to the mark.
“We’re all putting in the extra work, training has been fantastic and we want to get better all the time. Those seven newly capped players this campaign, they’ve left something in that jersey and need to be proud of themselves, but we need to go forward, we can’t stand still.”
“Main photo credit”
