Wales Women will not fly business class to World Cup as WRU aims to address inequalities

After a gruelling summer fitness camp, they travelled to Canada, where a convincing defeat was followed up by a 73-7 hammering by England – Wales’ fifth straight loss.

“No stone has been left unturned in the last nine months in particular, to prepare this team to perform with distinction in New Zealand,” added Walker.

“We know performance sport has no guarantees. We are hopeful and confident we have done everything possible to prepare this team.

“Ioan Cunningham and his coaches have to take enormous credit for the thought, endeavour and preparation which has gone into this campaign.

“The players have said their preparation has been better than anything they have experienced.

“The coaching team and support staff have worked wonders but players have also thrown themselves into it.

“There will be no excuses but I would caution that we have been a professional outfit for nine months.

“We have made progress and are expecting them to acquit themselves well in New Zealand, but there are other countries that have a head-start on us.

“We are confident we will close that gap and do well, but people need to have perspective.”

Walker has overseen the introduction of professional deals for female players since he arrived at the WRU, with the 32 players travelling to New Zealand all currently contracted.

“We have made tremendous progress in the last 12 months as far as women’s rugby in Wales at the elite level is concerned,” added Walker.

“We had 12 full-time contracts and up to 15 part-time contracts in January.

“After the Six Nations, Ioan and I had a conversation about how we could turbocharge our World Cup preparations and it was decided to offer around 35 – a few part-time because of people’s circumstances, but the vast majority full-time – and we think that’s helped our preparation.

“The plans were always to make it a world-class programme. We are on our way to making it a world-class programme but we recognise this is the start.

“We are ambitious to make women’s rugby a force over time, but we need to be patient.”