{"id":16603,"date":"2017-02-03T15:04:29","date_gmt":"2017-02-03T15:04:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jomec.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/?p=16603"},"modified":"2017-02-03T15:04:29","modified_gmt":"2017-02-03T15:04:29","slug":"wales-women-gear-six-nations-opener-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2017\/02\/03\/wales-women-gear-six-nations-opener-italy\/","title":{"rendered":"Wales women gear up for Six Nations opener in Italy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">ROWLAND Phillips has named his Wales team ahead of their Six Nations opener against Italy on Saturday. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wales women travel to Ancona this weekend hoping to avenge a 16-12 home defeat by the Azzurre in last season\u2019s competition. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The women\u00a0finished fourth in last season\u2019s tournament with two wins under previous boss Rhys Edwards, but since Phillips\u2019 introduction in the autumn, the team are on a four-match winning streak. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Most of Phillips\u2019 squad of 23 featured heavily over the autumn and the coach is optimistic that the good form will continue. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cThere is consistency, but the players are aware there is strong competition for places,\u201d he said. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cTheir performances are driven by that. They\u2019ve been rewarded for continuing to push themselves to keep hold of their jerseys.\u201d<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sian Williams, Wales\u2019 first ever professional female rugby player, is not\u00a0in the squad, but Phillips believes the pack will cope without her. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Phillips said: \u201cThe back row in any country or age group is always going to be the most competitive. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI met with Sian and it wasn\u2019t a case of \u2018not good enough, bye,\u2019 it was a case of wanting to work on things. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cShe\u2019s very focused and determined and I\u2019m convinced she is going to deliver the things we are asking for. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cThe players are already selected. It\u2019s our responsibility as coaches to develop everyone in this environment and the harder the selection, the greater the testament to the quality of the group.\u201d<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Phillips\u2019 chosen back row includes Scarlets flankers Sioned Harris and Rachel Taylor, while Shona Powell-Hughes of the Ospreys starts at No 8. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The starting 15 is made up of eight Ospreys, five Scarlets and two Newport Gwent Dragons players. <\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Italy v Wales kicks off at 2pm on Saturday.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Wales team to play Italy: \u00a0<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">15 Dyddgu Hywel (Scarlets), 14 Elen Evans (Scarlets), Kerin Lake (Ospreys), 12 Robyn Wilkins (Ospreys), 11 Adi Taviner (Ospreys), 10 Elinor Snowsill (Dragons), 9 Keira Bevan (Ospreys); 1 Caryl Thomas (Scarlets), 2 Carys Phillips (capt) (Ospreys), 3 Amy Evans (Ospreys), 4 Rebecca Rowe (Dragons), 5 Mel Clay (Ospreys), 6 Sioned Harries (Scarlets), 7 Rachel Taylor (Scarlets), 8 Shona Powell-Hughes (Ospreys)<\/span><br \/>\n<b>Replacements:\u00a0<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">16 Lowri Harries (Scarlets), 17 Cerys Hale (Dragons), 18 Gwenllian Pyrs (Scarlets), 19 Siwan Lillicrap (Ospreys), 20 Alisha Butchers (Scarlets), 21 Sian Moore (Dragons), 22 Gemma Rowland (Dragons), 23 Jessica Kavanagh-Williams (Scarlets) \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ROWLAND Phillips has named his Wales team ahead of their Six Nations opener against Italy on Saturday. Wales women travel to Ancona this weekend hoping to avenge a 16-12 home defeat by the Azzurre in last season\u2019s competition. The women\u00a0finished fourth in last season\u2019s tournament with two wins under previous boss Rhys Edwards, but since Phillips\u2019 introduction in the autumn, the team are on a four-match winning streak. Most of Phillips\u2019 squad of 23 featured heavily over the autumn and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":248,"featured_media":16349,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[151],"tags":[4307,154,340],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-16603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rugby","tag-rowland-phillips","tag-rugby-2","tag-wales-women"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Wales women gear up for Six Nations opener in Italy - The Cardiffian<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2017\/02\/03\/wales-women-gear-six-nations-opener-italy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Wales women gear up for Six Nations opener in Italy - The Cardiffian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"ROWLAND Phillips has named his Wales team ahead of their Six Nations opener against Italy on Saturday. Wales women travel to Ancona this weekend hoping to avenge a 16-12 home defeat by the Azzurre in last season\u2019s competition. The women\u00a0finished fourth in last season\u2019s tournament with two wins under previous boss Rhys Edwards, but since Phillips\u2019 introduction in the autumn, the team are on a four-match winning streak. Most of Phillips\u2019 squad of 23 featured heavily over the autumn and [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2017\/02\/03\/wales-women-gear-six-nations-opener-italy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Cardiffian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-02-03T15:04:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2017\/01\/WRU-Womens-Conf.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1028\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cathyduncan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@cathyduncan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cathyduncan\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2017\/02\/03\/wales-women-gear-six-nations-opener-italy\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2017\/02\/03\/wales-women-gear-six-nations-opener-italy\/\",\"name\":\"Wales women gear up for Six Nations opener in Italy - The Cardiffian\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2017\/02\/03\/wales-women-gear-six-nations-opener-italy\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2017\/02\/03\/wales-women-gear-six-nations-opener-italy\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2017\/01\/WRU-Womens-Conf.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-02-03T15:04:29+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/#\/schema\/person\/41c76b1e66d8cf6e57cba8550c3772b1\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2017\/02\/03\/wales-women-gear-six-nations-opener-italy\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2017\/02\/03\/wales-women-gear-six-nations-opener-italy\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2017\/02\/03\/wales-women-gear-six-nations-opener-italy\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2017\/01\/WRU-Womens-Conf.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2017\/01\/WRU-Womens-Conf.jpg\",\"width\":1028,\"height\":768},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2017\/02\/03\/wales-women-gear-six-nations-opener-italy\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Wales women gear up for Six Nations opener in Italy\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/\",\"name\":\"The Cardiffian\",\"description\":\"Just another JOMEC Sites Network site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/#\/schema\/person\/41c76b1e66d8cf6e57cba8550c3772b1\",\"name\":\"cathyduncan\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/d4d0895f6e1f7ccb86d04236a870a18b\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7cd1b1b63598c25c15d3e0d390366ec2ba1c99865b1a23c34339be8c5c396a81?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7cd1b1b63598c25c15d3e0d390366ec2ba1c99865b1a23c34339be8c5c396a81?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"cathyduncan\"},\"description\":\"Lecturer, Cardiff University News Journalism MA. 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