Phillips’ side begin the tournament by welcoming Scotland to Colwyn Bay’s Stadiwm Zip World on Friday February 9 prior to the corresponding Women’s U20 fixture at the same venue. The squad will be captained by Carys Phillips with Ospreys trio Natalia John, Amy Thomas, Cara Hope and Alecs Donovan among the new faces.
They are joined by Scarlets’ Beth Lewis, Jade Knight, Lisa Neumann and Angharad De Smet, along with Cardiff Blues’ Awen Prysor and Hannah Bluck.
“The new caps have brought a real hunger and energy to training, which is infectious,” said Phillips. “There’s a fresh feel to the squad, and a sense of building for the long term.
“Natalia John, who is a young second-row who hasn’t been playing too long, has come through Swansea University. We’ve got Beth Lewis who was away with the Under 18s and got a Bronze medal in the Commonwealth.
“We’ve got some outstanding talent like Elisha Butchers, who seems to be getting better and better every year. There’s also Hannah Black, who is an extremely powerful player.
“There’s a lot of good quality established players and the great thing about this squad is even the established players aren’t that old. We’ve got a sprinkling of some quality young players coming through.”
They will play all their home fixtures in this year’s tournament in North Wales, with the exception of their game against Italy, which will take place at Principality Stadium as part of a double-header with the men’s squad on Sunday, 11 March. Phillips is expecting a tough challenge but is confident his squad has what it takes to be very competitive.
“We lost to Scotland last year and at half-time we were pretty comfortable but they came back so we know they’ve got a lot of fight in them,” said Phillips.
“Ireland is going to be very interesting because they will be disappointed after the World Cup and they’ve given their backroom staff a bit of a shake-up.
“But the Ireland we know are a very strong team so that will be a great first hit out for us on Sunday so we can check to see where were are at against one of the top sides. Scotland will be a fierce battle because they will want to qualify for the next World Cup.
“They’ve shown since they didn’t qualify for the one last summer how good they are. They’ve broken it all down and started again and they look very strong.”
