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Wales captain Hannah Jones has admitted that she considered retiring from international rugby amid the “disgraceful” handling of her squad’s contracts last year.
The Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) apologised after threatening to withdraw the women’s national team during a stand-off the negotiations over new deals last August, though denied that their behaviour had been sexist.
Both coach Ioan Cunningham and Nigel Walker, executive director of rugby, soon departed the union, who have appointed Sean Lynn as head coach ahead of the Women’s Six Nations.
Lynn has worked closely with Jones at Gloucester-Hartpury and has confirmed the centre as his captain for the tournament as Wales prepare to open their campaign against Scotland on Saturday 22 March.
But the 28-year-old has admitted that she considered turning down the role over the contracts saga.
“It took a night [to decide],” Jones revealed. “I said to Lynny straight away it was an absolute honour to lead my country. But I did have to talk about it and make sure it was the right decision.
“I just want to play rugby. Sometimes I feel like a politician. I don’t want all this off-field stuff. I just want to focus on my rugby and make sure the team is in a happy environment and happy place to play the best they can.
“I thought, ‘Is this the right time for someone new?’ The thing for me was who was coming in next, who was going to my next coach and 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. Once they’d announced Lynny, I thought, I can do this.”
Asked if she had considered retiring, Jones said: “Not completely, because I still love the game. But the stress of the contracts and what we’d been through as a squad was disgraceful and disappointing.
“The WRU have apologised and have appointed Belinda Moore [as head of women’s rugby]. Hopefully what the players went through will never happen again. But yeah, it [giving up] was in the back of my head.
“It was very emotionally distressing. 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.”
Most elite female players are not full-time professionals, with only those with national contracts able to earn a living solely from playing the game.
That created a scenario in which that the Welsh players were fretting over their futures after the impasse in negotiations.
“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,” Jones explained. “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.”
Wales finished bottom of the table in last year’s Six Nations, beating Italy in their final game to earn their only win of the campaign..
Jones is hopeful, though, that Lynn can inspire a turnaround as he prepares to seek a third consecutive Premiership Women’s Rugby (PWR) title with Gloucester-Hartpury against Saracens on Sunday.
“He’s the right person for the job for sure,” Jones said of her club coach. “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.”
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