Bevan buoyed by Wales U20s progress

Under his stewardship, Bevan, who joined the WRU while serving as an independent high-performance consultant to World Rugby on attachment to USA Rugby, has seen the Wales U20 men’s team make significant progress since claiming the wooden spoon in this year’s Six Nations while the Wales Women’s U20s side that toured North America earlier this month for two Tests against USA and Canada boasted 16 players who had graduated from the U18s programme to suggest both teams are moving in the right direction.

At the U20 World Rugby Championship, Wales travelled to Cape Town with an ‘interim’ new head coach in Mark Jones after Byron Hayward stepped down after the Six Nations. Many expected Wales to be outgunned but a stirring performance against New Zealand in the opening game raised plenty of eye-brows. Wales lost 26-27 but gained plenty of admiration in the way they played the game. They followed up with a 41-19 win against Japan before losing 43-19 to eventual champions France in their last pool match.

Crucially Wales qualified for the 5^th-8^th grouping where they defeated Georgia 40-21 before losing to Australia 33-57 to eventually finish sixth in the championship.

“I was delighted that we got into that middle group, results showed that the whole competition was very competitive, and you didn’t want to end up in the bottom four as you don’t know what could happen from there,” said Bevan, referring to the fact whoever comes last gets relegated automatically.

“There was a real danger we could have been in that position but the fact we were competitive against New Zealand was very important and it gave us the bonus points needed to qualify for the middle tier.

“It just goes to show how competitive the whole World Cup was. Look at the other pools where everybody was beating everybody like Italy beating South Africa and Georgia beating Argentina. Italy beat South Africa but ended up in the bottom pool, so it illustrates how tight things are at this level,” added Bevan.

To ensure the ongoing success of the Age Grade Programmes, Bevan and the Pathways staff are currently working with the regions to introduce an academy license which will have set criteria.

“The academy licence will provide us with a framework for the development of our players,” explained Bevan.

“The collaborations and communication with the regions are huge. Consistency in operating standards across the board is key.

“The academy license will provide us with a set of operating standards to work towards, but we need to ensure the quality of the programmes we are delivering are also up to standard. It will be a collaboration between us and the regions to ensure we support the development of our next generation of players.”

On the women’s game, Bevan said Wales Women making Tier 1 on the WXV was ‘fantastic news.’

“Based on their performances in the Six Nations it’s going to be very competitive in New Zealand,” he said.

“We should be looking to chip away and make our way further up the world rankings.

“The way the age grade programmes are developing is very promising also and this will be underpinned by the player development centres. But we also need to look now on what comes underneath that in terms of the community game.

“The Celtic Challenge is important moving forward, how we develop that is going to be a critical part of a women’s strategy going forward.”

With a large remit to cover, we’ve taken the opportunity to ask Huw Bevan the following questions

With the dust settling on the recent U20 World Rugby Championship, how do you reflect on the team’s performances after they finished sixth in the competition held in Cape Town?

While the outcome of the final game was disappointing there were games where we were competitive, but I think Mark’s [Jones] input into the preparation and the way the team went about their performances in South Africa was commendable so credit to him and to the staff and the players in terms of the way they applied themselves.

To be very competitive against New Zealand then to beat Japan in the way we did and be as resilient as we were and stay in that fight was impressive. The win over Georgia in conditions that were heavy and more suited to their style was excellent.

To be fair to the players they executed the game plan particularly well against Georgia. I would imagine the coaches and management were very satisfied with that result. Although I think they were probably maybe a little bit disappointed with the result against Australia where we created opportunities but didn’t take them and I know Mark was a little bit disappointed with the way we defended at times.

The big thing which is really pleasing though is the number of players we have available coming back next year. The figure is in double digits so that experience could be vital moving forward.

What happens next?

I think what we need to do is review what we have done, feed back to the regions in terms of their players, see what their thoughts are with regards to what needs to be done to make sure these players continue their improvement and work with the regions to develop these players.

A number of players impressed in South Africa – do you think they are ready for regional rugby?

Making sure these players have opportunities to play is obviously key because that was one of the areas highlighted in the Six Nations with the relative difference between playing experience of some of our players compared to France in particular where they have players getting exposure to the Top 14 but I’m sure some of these guys will push on and put their hands up for potential URC places.

I would like to think their performances might make them more selectable and with regions currently having to readjust their squad sizes they may get more opportunities to play.

What’s happening on the coaching front as Mark Jones was brought in as an ‘interim’ head coach for the U20 World Rugby Championship?

The appointment was interim so we obviously need to have a look at that, and we will need a full time head coach going forward and obviously Mark, if he was interested in the role, would be a strong contender.

Ideally, we would like to keep him involved but we have to go through a process because as it will be a new appointment, we will have to fulfil our obligations as there could be other coaches interested in the role.

So the new coach would be a full-time role and he would be assisted by other coaches during competition periods?

We are not in a position to have full time coaches across the board yet. Obviously, Richie [Pugh] is full-time because of his roles with U18s and 7s. He is another excellent person involved in the management team but I don’t think we’re in a position to make the set-piece coach and defence coach full time yet.

In an ideal world would that be the ideal scenario?

What would be ideal for me is to have a set-piece coach who works across men and women because that is an area that has been flagged. Generally, across our pathways we need more staff. A kicking coach to work across the pathways is another area to look at but that is a much longer-term viewpoint.

How do you look back on the Wales Women’s U20s trip to North America?

In terms of the women’s programme the Wales U20s did really well in North America. They lost by one point in their first game against USA. It was a good competitive game. We went down a couple of tries but showed some brilliant resilience in terms of coming back to within one point. We were in a position where we could kick for goal to win the game.

The second performance against Canada we were a little bit more polished and little bit more experienced to come away with a deserved victory.

How do we keep the Wales Women’s U20s programme moving forward?

It’s important we look to underpin the U20s with a strong pathway underneath it. It’s great to see girls’ rugby flourishing in North Wales for instance. We had six players from RGC in the Wales U20s squad that toured North America and there were also five RGC girls involved in the Wales U18 side who won the Rugby Europe 7s title.

The player development centres will come into play where these girls will have more skill development and physical development to make sure they’re prepared for the demands of international rugby.

Are you optimistic of a successful future for both the men’s and women’s programmes?

I think we can be very positive with the way things are looking going forward. From a men’s perspective in terms of the improvement and in terms of their performances in South Africa, the results in particular and the number of players that are coming back next year I think that’s extremely positive.

From the women’s perspective I think it highlighted that there’s a number of players who are coming through our age grade teams who further down the line you would expect to come through to the senior ranks.

With the Allianz Premier 15s due changes which may restrict Welsh representation, will that have any effect on our players who play for teams in that competition?

They’re not making drastic changes in the next year or so but they will over time and this is why it is so important that we get these Celtic Challenge teams and develop that competition for us, Scotland and Ireland. That’s eventually going to be the avenue that hopefully supersedes the Allianz Premiership.

Eventually I expect a transition period where I would hope we could put the majority of our senior players into those sides.

The Dewar Shield has moved to an U16 competition this year – why is that?

There’s a 10-year plan from the entry point of 14 through to exiting the academy and towards the professional game.

What was happening previously was selection for the U15s was limiting the development of some of those players and causing some players to drop out.

The intention is to keep more players in the pool. Typically, if you select early you tend to get bigger and physically more mature kids who may be chronologically the same age but in terms of maturation are much older.

What happens is those kids then don’t have to develop the skills necessary to go forward so it’s about giving everybody an opportunity to be selected when they are physically a bit more mature and also to develop the skills necessary.

Ultimately, you’re going to get a better pool of players and retain them because you’re giving them a positive experience of rugby for longer – the intention is to keep more players in the system and make them better.

Since taking up the role, has it been what you expected?

The role has been what I expected. I think there’s been a few more challenges than I anticipated in terms of the resource available, but I think my previous role in the USA was excellent preparation for this position.

I am happy with the progress we are making, it’s been good to see the positive things like how the U20s turned things around. Mark [Jones] brings with him a bit of an infectious enthusiasm and the way he has gone about things is as much as anything cause of positive reaction.

I think the women’s programme is the same – there are really good people involved who work hard and have a positive outlook which has a really positive effect on the performance of the team and the players.