The Wales captain, Hannah Jones, says what the squad went through in a contract controversy last year was “disgraceful” and made her contemplate international retirement.
Allegations emerged in October that the Welsh Rugby Union had threatened to withdraw from the 2025 Rugby World Cup if the women’s team did not sign new contracts on offer. Jones says the negotiations last year were difficult “from day one” and that communication with the WRU was a “big issue”, with some of her players “becoming unwell physically and mentally” because of the process.
The WRU, which denied some of the allegations made against it in the autumn, has since apologised to the squad for how negotiations were handled. The governing body conducted an independent review and admitted “serious failings” while the Wales coach, Ioan Cunningham, also left by mutual consent.
Jones said: “The thing for me was who was coming in next? Who was going to be my next coach? That was career-wise, whether I was going to continue to play or whether I was going to take some time back to think about playing national rugby.
“The stress of the contracts and what we’d been through as a squad was disgraceful and disappointing. Hopefully what the players went through will never happen again. But yeah, it [giving up] was in the back of my head.”
Sean Lynn, Jones’s head coach at Gloucester-Hartpury, was appointed as Cunningham’s replacement in January after the WRU had already named the former Premiership Women’s Rugby chief executive Belinda Moore as the head of women’s rugby.
She added: “Once they’d announced Sean Lynn, the excitement built and I thought, I can do this. I spoke with my husband and I feel I have got more to give.”
Jones, 28, who has won 58 caps for Wales, outlined the extent to which the contract saga had impacted on players in the squad. “It was very emotionally distressing,” she said. “I deal with stress and pressure quite well, but a lot of my players were becoming unwell physically and mentally.
“When I saw my players going through that it’s a huge responsibility on my shoulders. You do really take it on yourself and you think, ‘Is this my fault? How have I let this happen?’ But you look at the bigger picture and the environment and situations that we were in, we’ve stayed really tight together as a squad through it.”
The process ended up being an on-pitch distraction because of the consequences for Jones and her teammates if contracts were not agreed. She added: “I wanted to be fully focused putting my boots on and getting the best performance out of myself and the team but when you go into contract negotiations and it’s not smooth you’ve got no security behind you.
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“You don’t know whether you’ve got a job one minute or not, you don’t know if you’re able to pay your mortgage, you don’t know if you’re able to feed your family. People see the glamour of rugby, but for a female player, maybe it’s not so much glam.”
When contract negotiations happen again in the future, Jones believes Moore “has got a big role and a lot of responsibility” within the process and should ensure players are not ever “distressed” again.
Jones is now looking towards the future. Wales’s opening Women’s Six Nations match is away to Scotland on 22 March and, while results are important, there is another highlight for Jones in the upcoming tournament.
“As a Gloucester-Hartpury player I know what a good environment is,” she said. “I know what it should feel like and that’s definitely going to be created. I’ve full faith in the people we have in place. You’re going to see a different side to us. It’s a clean start. I feel like a massive weight has been lifted off my shoulders and I can just play rugby again and not have to deal with all this nonsense behind the scenes.
“He [Lynn] is the right person for the job for sure. Since he’s been announced, I’ve been excited to get my Welsh jersey back on again. We talk about results and we talk about who’s going to win, but a big result for me as captain is just seeing the girls happy in a Welsh shirt and enjoying their rugby in a Welsh environment again.”
