“These are games you love to play,” the Wales scrum-half Keira Bevan says, looking ahead to a sold-out match against England in Cardiff on Saturday.
Both teams are on unbeaten runs, with Wales up for a Triple Crown, and the 25-year-old, who is in the form of her life, does not even pretend that games against England are not always circled on the calendar. “England v Wales always has that niggly edge. It’s just a great game and occasion to be a part of. And in Cardiff? It doesn’t get much better than that does it?”
Bevan won her 50th cap against Scotland, having won her first back in 2015 against England – the last time Wales won this fixture. She recognises that her team’s form means Saturday’s game probably represents the best chance they have had since.
The advent of contracts has been key to closing the gap – Wales have gone from bottom of the Six Nations two years ago, to being likely disappointed if they finish below third this year.
“It’s been massive. I’m able to work on the 1% a lot more now – my kicking game for example,” she says. “You had to put things like that on the back burner before as you only had time for certain things. I think all our body shapes have changed as well for the better – we’re fitter and stronger.”
On kicking, Bevan is bemused at the suggestion the England coach Simon Middleton made this week that women’s players should be allowed to take their kicks closer to the posts. “To be honest I thought it was a quite bizarre suggestion as he has got some of the best kickers in the world in his team. Emma Sing slotted one from the touchline against Italy and that had another five or 10 metres in it.
“I saw former England coach Gary Street saying that players like Emily Scarratt and Katy Daley-Mclean, who are both fantastic kickers, are not freaks of nature, they just put the hours in and worked hard at it. I think it’s about that – how willing you are to work to get better at a skill and how much time you have. We have more time than ever now so it’s going to get better.”
The performances of the young prop Sisilia Tuipulotu have hogged all the headlines in Wales in this Six Nations, but Bevan’s form has been blistering. She tops the charts as the scrum-half with the most metres made and defenders beaten in the Six Nations and Premier 15s league this season, and she has beaten more defenders (seven) in the Six Nations than the other scrum halves combined (six).
Winning her 50th cap was a special moment for her and her family. Her dad, Richard, a skilful former Swansea full-back, has been at all but one of her international games and watched on with pride with her mother last week. “Liz and I were invited to the shirt presentation the night before the match so that was just a really lovely and proud moment for us to be part of,,” he says.
Richard is well placed to opine on the journey the Wales women’s team has been on, having had a ringside seat as the team transitioned from amateur to professional.
“It’s night and day now the difference. When we first started going to the games, we’d have a few hundred, maybe a thousand there on a good day at a game, and now they’re selling out Cardiff Arms Park.
“When Nigel Walker came in and said he was going to change things and get the players contracts, I think there was a sense of: ‘Yeah, yeah, we’ve heard all this before.’ But fair play, he has really changed things for the better – even for us parents. We used to all meet down the pub before the games, now we often get hospitality. It’s lovely.
“I do think Keira is one of the lucky ones to come in and have this opportunity now to dedicate herself to rugby full-time. I think of fantastic players like Rachel Taylor and Elen Evans, and how they used to have to travel down from north Wales for training and then drive back, get home after midnight and then get up for work the next day. They’ve missed out on this era despite working so hard for it.”
Keira acknowledges the role her family have played as she has moved into the highest level of the game. “Back in 2015 when I got my first cap, I hadn’t even passed my driving test, so they were driving me everywhere and having to hang around and wait for me. They have been such a huge support especially before we turned professional. I put life on the back burner and they supported me financially too. Fifty caps later I can finally buy Rich a coffee,” she laughs.
But having fine-tuned her game with Bristol in the English league, Bevan cannot see herself playing club rugby in Wales any time soon. “The aim is to improve the league long term in Wales, but I am very happy playing over the border. The way we are looked after from a medical and conditioning point of view at Bristol is just as good as internationally.
“I had a serious hamstring injury in 2020 and I think if I had been playing for Swansea it would probably still be off the bone as we speak. That is how I look at it. The funding wasn’t in the Welsh club game then and it’s not there yet now either.”
She is relishing what she knows will be a step up in intensity on Saturdday having experienced the pressure of playing New Zealand twice at the World Cup. “New Zealand took us to an intensity we had not been taken to before and that quarter-final game was probably the toughest Test match I have ever played in.”
“Defending against them was such a slog, but that put us in such a good stead for this Six Nations. We’ll find out where we really are on Saturday.”
