{"id":27719,"date":"2025-07-28T15:01:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T15:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/27719\/"},"modified":"2025-07-28T15:01:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T15:01:08","slug":"reaction-from-wales-after-wallaroos-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/27719\/","title":{"rendered":"Reaction from Wales after Wallaroos win"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Every country that is preparing for the Women\u2019s Rugby World Cup<\/a> in England in August and September is looking for momentum.<\/p>\n

And Wales<\/a> have certainly given themselves some with their excellent away win over Australia<\/a> at the weekend, a victory which co-captain Alex Callender<\/a> called a \u201cstatement\u201d triumph.<\/p>\n

Wales<\/a> went into the clash with the sixth in the world Wallaroos<\/a> in Ballymore Stadium in Brisbane 10th in the rankings and without a victory under head coach Sean Lynn after a winless Guinness Women\u2019s Six Nations<\/a> campaign.<\/p>\n

But Lynn\u2019s charges put in an inspired performance to win 21-12 \u2013 not even a stoppage to the game for thunder and lightning could put them off \u2013 and they will have taken real heart from this showing.<\/p>\n

They will now be looking to back it up in Sydney in the second Test this coming Friday evening, but, whatever happens there, Wales seem to be on the rise ahead of the big dance and their opener with old rivals Scotland on August 23rd in Manchester.<\/p>\n

Alex Callender, recently named co-captain going forward with Kate Williams<\/a>, skippered the side from No.8 at the weekend and she said: \u201cI\u2019m so proud. I think we\u2019ve spoken a lot about physicality in recent times and I think one to 23 everyone stood up in this game.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a statement from us and now we have a platform that we need to build from, we need to look forward and not take a step backwards.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis means a lot to me and all of the girls. After the Six Nations<\/a> we had some real tough conversations and we\u2019ve worked so hard these past eight weeks or so in the build up to get this result. It really puts us in a good place moving forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll celebrate this result, but we\u2019ll look to back it up again this coming week. We really want to do that to give us a good platform going into the World Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the final whistle blew on Saturday there is no doubt that Callender would have been thinking about her late mum.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the month when the 24-year-old Harlequin was named co-captain with Gloucester-Hartpury<\/a>\u2019s Williams she said: \u201cEverybody knows my late mam, Donna, who passed away in 2023, would be so proud to see me lead my country. She has always been my \u2018why\u2019 and I know she is looking down on me and know how proud she would be with this news.\u201d<\/p>\n

Especially exciting for Wales supporters is that there were a lot of young players in the matchday 23 in Brisbane with Katherine Baverstock, Tilly Vucaj<\/a> and Seren Lockwood<\/a> earning debut caps off the bench.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unbelievable to see the youth coming through now in Wales and the pathways being right to help the younger players get to this level and challenge for places is exactly what we need,\u201d Callender stated.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve got the gym, they\u2019ve got facilities, they\u2019ve got S&C, they are given help nutrition wise and they have good coaches within the pathway and the age grade teams so it helps them to bridge the gap and make the jump up to this level.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have all been buzzing to see how the young players have taken to things in this environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another person who is buzzing, unsurprisingly, is Sean Lynn. This was a first international triumph by a Welsh team, men\u2019s or women\u2019s, against an Australian team in Australia since 1969.<\/p>\n

And post-Brisbane he said: \u201cI asked the girls to set some targets going forward and this win is certainly a great start.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve worked so hard in the past eight weeks and it was lovely to see the performance that they put in out there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat performance showed everything that we want to be and it is something that we were going after. I\u2019m over the moon for the girls and the staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe youngsters stepped up and you could see the hard work from the summer camps paying off, they are all becoming better players and are maturing nicely.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought Alex Callender and Bethan Lewis were outstanding in the back-row and our half-backs [Keira Bevan and Lleucu George] controlled the game. I asked the squad to believe and they showed everyone what they can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

On to Sydney, and Wales know they will face a backlash from a wounded Wallaroos outfit who, by their own admission, fell below the standards they set themselves in Brisbane.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe aren\u2019t the finished article and there is plenty to work on,\u201d Lynn concluded.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe feel winning this first Test has helped us to put down a marker before the World Cup, but now we have to go and try and back it up against a strong opponent with a six-day turnaround.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every country that is preparing for the Women\u2019s Rugby World Cup in England in August and September is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-27719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}