The Wales coach had come in for savage criticism from so-called keyboard warriors on social media and been questioned by official channels with the women’s game under increasing glare as its profile grows.
But he insisted: “The pressure is a privilege. We are lucky to do what we do. It is hard at times but moments like that are so special. I’m so pleased for the players because they put in so much hard work.
Cunningham had a bucket of ice and cold water poured over him by his celebrating squad and had a change of clothes before addressing questions at the post-match Press conference.
He said: “It just showed a lot of emotion. A lot of effort and a lot of disappointment has gone through this group over the last six or seven weeks. One thing is we have been tight as a group and it all came out at the end.
“This Welsh team will not give up. It pulled it out and we should celebrate a victory, which we had not had for a long time. It is massive and means so much to us all. So much work, energy and effort had gone into this campaign and things hadn’t gone our way.
“I’m just so proud of the effort. It’s been a tough campaign. It’s not where we want to be but to get the win was huge to give us a springboard back to where we want to get to. We are not a bad team, it’s just things haven’t happened. We are trying to change the way we are playing. We will get there,” declared Cunningham.
“We can build on that, whatever is next for us we will focus on that, try and get some more wins and keep building on exposing some more talent and on the experience we have.”
Cunningham described playing at the Principality Stadium in front of a record crowd of 10,592 for a home Wales women’s Test as “fantastic”.
“It was a great platform for the players to go and express themselves, the whole build-up, the support and the stadium itself. We loved it.”
On Wales finishing bottom of the Six Nations table, he said: “We will look at it critically, at ourselves and where we can get better but I think, what’s important at this time, is to enjoy this because we have gone through a tough period. This is the springboard we need to go in the right direction.”
Wales captain Hannah Jones said the win was for Wales’ supporters: “Resilience is key and we will just keep going and keep getting better – that is just the start for us.
“This group is absolutely amazing and we would like to thank our staff, we’ve worked hard and we absolutely deserved that win. I’m so proud of the girls.”
