The 18-year-old from Carmarthen was a sevens age-grade star last year as she led her country to its first ever Commonwealth Games team medal in the youth version of the competition.
“Winning that bronze and captaining Team Wales in the Bahamas was a huge honour,” she reflects. “It was a good year overall in 2017, because we also got to the final of the School Games and the Rugby Europe Sevens in Vichy.”
She’s now hoping to translate that success to senior level with her involvement in the 2018 Women’s Six Nations. “There’s a massive step up in intensity when you come into the senior camp for the first time,” she says, “but the girls make you feel welcome and it’s a really good environment. There’s a real buzz around with so much on the horizon for sevens and fifteens.”
Lewis, who represents Scarlets and Gloucester-Hartpury, has prior experience of training with the women after some involvement last year. “I got to watch the girls play and took a lot from being around the squad. I would have loved to have been at the Women’s Rugby World Cup in the summer, but to get this opportunity now is great.”
One of the new breed of women players who has been fortunate to start the game very early in life, Lewis took up rugby with Carmarthen Quins as a mere six-year-old, and it was in secondary school at Bro Myrddin that she was first introduced to sevens.
“We went to Rosslyn Park in year 11 and won every game in the pool bar the one against Dyffryn Aman,” recalls Lewis of the local West Wales rivals, who would go on to win the whole tournament. “They had players such as Lucy Packer, who’s with the sevens in Brisbane now, and some of the girls who played in the Commonwealth Youth Games, like Caitlin Lewis.”
Adept at many sports – she once surfed for Great Britain at the Junior World Championships in Ecuador – Lewis is one of the players hoping to maximise on the One Programme culture created by the coaches of fifteens and sevens. “How good would that be, to be involved in sevens and fifteens for your country? You can see how much sevens is growing, and it’s awesome for the girls having this chance out in Australia now, and again in April for the Commonwealths.”
Should she win her first senior cap for her country, her father will be one of the first people she thanks. “My dad’s driven me miles and miles for rugby, and he’s been a huge support. I don’t think I’d be where I am in rugby without him,” she says. “Every time I come off the field he offers me very honest feedback, but if he says I’ve played well then I know I’ve played well.”
The direction in which the Rowland Phillips-led Wales Women are heading has filled her with enthusiasm. “It’s really exciting because there are so many of us youngsters – the future is going to be amazing,” she says. “We’re developing our game in a more attacking sense, with an emphasis on skills and ball-handling.
“I’m really looking forward to seeing what the future has in store for this team.”
Wales Women and Wales U20 will face their Scottish counterparts at Stadiwm Zip World in Colwyn Bay this Friday evening as part of a double-header.
