Celebrating twenty years of Wales Women

Wales Women’s final Women’s Six Nations match in 2007 against England marked the 20th anniversary of the fixture and a dinner was held at the Village Hotel in Cardiff with players, volunteers, committee members and club representatives of past and present.

Eleven members from the first team were amongst the special guests including Liza Burgess, who announced her international retirement from the game at the dinner, which remarkably started twenty years ago when she captained the very first Wales Women’s team.

Carol Isherwood OBE, the Director of Rugby for the Rugby Football Union for Women, made a moving speech on the evening and recounted some special memories of women’s rugby over the last twenty years. Isherwood, who captained England in 1987 and has subsequently received an OBE for services to women’s rugby, spoke of the development of the game over the twenty years.

Isherwood said: “Whilst many facets such as player support have moved on by all recognition in the last twenty years, the fact remains that everyone involved in the women’s game does so because of their love and passion for the best sport in the world!”

The evening ended with a special presentation of honours caps to the eleven members of the original team. Fittingly, Liza Burgess made the presentation of the caps to her fellow teammates from that day.

Burgess said: “This evening has proved very emotional as it’s the first time we’ve all been together for a long long time. It’s also the first time we’ve been awarded caps for international duty, which is a fitting way to mark my retirement from international rugby. It’s definitely an evening I’ll treasure for a very long time.”