Pontarddulais’ Keira Bevan is set to make her first start of the 2022 Women’s Rugby World Cup, as Ioan Cunningham’s team take on New Zealand in the quarter-finals.
Bevan was crucial in Wales qualifying for the knockout tournament, scoring an 86th-minute penalty goal to secure an 18-15 win in the first game against Scotland.
She comes into the side to make her first start, replacing Amman Valley star Ffion Lewis at number nine, who goes into the replacements.
Meanwhile former Ysgol Dyffryn Amman pupil Hannah Jones retains the captaincy of the side
Cunningham, who attended the same school, has made eight changes in preparing for the knockout stage, hoping for revenge against New Zealand.
The two sides met in the group stage, where the hosts of the tournament thrashed Cunningham’s side 56-12, with Lewis scoring one of Wales’ tries.
Cunningham said: “It’s a hugely exciting week for us all, the girls have done extremely well to get to this point and we should all be proud of that.
“We have a tough task on Saturday facing the Black Ferns on their home patch. They are in good form, scoring a lot of points and playing well.
“However, we have nothing to lose, we intend to go out and leave everything on the field.
“We had some set piece dominance in our Pool game against them but we also created quite a few chances, many of which we didn’t convert.
“Keira has made a positive impact coming off the bench so deserves to start at scrum-half, while Ffion has a different role this week.
“We will be playing in front of a huge home crowd and we will need to feed off the atmosphere.
"To play New Zealand twice in a world cup is 100 per cent the experience you want to grow as a team – it’s only going to raise our standards short term but also longer term too.”
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In the backs, Keira Bevan and Lowri Norkett are handed their first starts of the tournament at scrum-half and on the right wing respectively, with Jasmine Joyce moving to full-back. Up front, Donna Rose and Carys Phillips return to the front row to take their place alongside Cara Hope who has started every game.
The Wales team is:
15 Jasmine Joyce, 14 Lowri Norkett, 13 Carys Williams-Morris, 12 Hannah Jones (capt), 11. Lisa Neumann, 10 Elinor Snowsill, 9 Keira Bevan, 1 Cara Hope, 2 Carys Phillips, 3 Donna Rose, 4 Natalia John, 5 Gwen Crabb, 6 Bethan Lewis, 7 Alex Callender, 8 Sioned Harries
Replacements: 16 Kelsey Jones, 17 Gwenllian Pyrs, 18 Sisilia Tuipulotu, 19 Georgia Evans, 20 Siwan Lillicrap, 21 Ffion Lewis, 22 Lleucu George, 23 Megan Webb
The game against New Zealand kicks off at 7.30am on the morning of Saturday, October 29, with full coverage on ITV from 7.15am.
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