The Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) has officially opened its new National Centre of Excellence providing training and back-up facilities hailed as 'unrivalled' in world rugby.
From now on, all international rugby players selected to represent Wales at any level will train at the base, with the World Cup-winning Wales Sevens squad included as a core element of the Welsh international pathway structure.
The Sports Council for Wales invested £1.5million of National Lottery funding and the WRU provided the further £1m required to complete the project, which cost £4 million in total.
The facility offers the teams the best available pitches, training facilities, medical equipment, coaches and backroom personnel. There are three outdoor full-size pitches along with external skills training zones where players can focus on scrummage and lineout technique and performance. One of the three pitches has an all weather surface and is fully floodlit to allow day or night time sessions all year round.
The senior national squad's backroom team is based at one side of the administrative complex, while the Wales international pathway structure is on the other side under the union's Head of Rugby Performance and Development, Joe Lydon, meaning that newly selected youth players have the opportunity and aspiration to literally enter the system through one door and leave it through another.
Lydon: "Nothing left to chance"
"This new facility compares with anything I have seen or worked at in the world game and represents a major step forward for the whole of Welsh rugby," said Lydon, a former rugby league international who has also coached the England Sevens team.
"This is an aspirational environment within which every young player will know they are being given the opportunity to achieve something special with their lives.
"Nothing is now left to chance and the systems, structures and people we have in place will deliver huge benefits for the future of Welsh rugby."
Only recently, national Sevens coach Paul John centrally contracted eight full-time Sevens professionals and this most recent development is a further considerable boost.
"Only last year, we had to prepare for our IRB World Sevens Series tournaments and the Rugby World Cup Sevens on various pitches around Wales, sometimes having to change training venues at the last minute due to the weather and pitch quality," said John.
"Being able to train on our doorstep come rain or shine is already making a massive difference to our training and preparation.
Colin Hillman: In memoriam
"I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to former Wales Sevens coach Colin Hillman, who recently passed away after a battle with cancer. Colin was such a guiding influence on Sevens rugby in Wales and had a huge impact on us as a playing and coaching group last season, and our successful Rugby World Cup Sevens campaign.
"He would be very pleased to see the developments in Wales Sevens, including the decision to contract core players, and the facilities we are now able to enjoy."
Sentiments echoed by Wales senior team head coach Warren Gatland: "One of our core values is that each player holds a responsibility to the Welsh jersey and if we ask them to give their all for that we have a duty to help them as much and as professionally as we can.
"By creating this fantastic facility we are treating all our players with the utmost respect and now we can ask them to deliver their best for Wales.
"We know the raw talent exists at all levels in Wales and the National Centre of Excellence is the right place to nurture and develop that.
"All of us in the national squad are delighted that the Welsh Rugby Union has had the vision and determination to achieve this major improvement in facilities for our international squads."
