The Wales Women Sevens side, captained by Sian Williams, beat Belgium 28-0 and Sweden 24-12 on Day One to ensure a place in the Cup quarter-finals. They ended the day on a disappointing note with a 50-5 loss to France but set up a quarter-final showdown with arch-rivals England. The home nations sides went in 5-5 at the break and the match could have gone either way, England eventually winning 12-10.
Wales went on to beat Belgium again 12-7 and although they lost their final game 10-19 to Spain in the fifth place play-off, Wakley is satisfied with the outing.
“The girls have come so far,” said former centre and wing Wakley. “They were professional throughout the tournament, and were clinical in scoring some good tries. Most pleasing for me was, despite a drop in performance levels for some of the France game, we still caused problems against them and were competitive against three World Series teams who train full-time – England, France and Spain.
“We played well in our first two games and knew we’d qualified for the Cup quarters. Despite a disappointing result against France at the end of Day One, we regrouped and prepared well for England. We knew if we played to our maximum we had a chance of winning. We showed real grit in that game, were excellent in the contact area and in attack and it could have gone either way.”
Dyddgu Hywel put in a particularly impressive shift in France, with Elinor Snowsill pulling the strings as playmaker and Hannah Jones outside her. Olympian Jasmine Joyce was prolific on the scoresheet while Shona Powell-Hughes, Keira Bevan and Sinead Breeze were also among the try scorers.
Wakley believes last weekend’s showing was something to build on ahead of the next tournament in Kazan, a decent performance there guaranteeing Wales Women a place at the Commonwealth Games for the first time.
“We’ve got to replicate and improve our performances now,” added Wakley who, as Ebbw Vale backs coach helped the Steelmen clinch the Principality Premiership last season. “We want to turn heads with our performances, make sure of Gold Coast Commonwealth Games qualification and hopefully get involved in the World Series.
“We have a tough draw in Kazan (July 8/9), with Italy, Netherlands who have had recent World Series exposure in Canada and home team Russia who were overall winners last weekend. They are well-structured, have great physicality and athletic ability like all the World Series sides. That will be a fantastic test to see how far we’ve come.”
