Wales winger Rachel Rowe praises progress being made in women’s game

For Wales, 2025 represents potentially the biggest year yet for its women’s team, and Rachel Rowe is fully aware of that.

Since qualifying for the Euros against the Republic of Ireland, attention around the team and the country have grown, but it wasn’t always like this.

Like many females in sport, Rowe and her teammates have waited a long time for a breakout moment like this, and the winger spoke openly about finally feeling that they are on a level playing field.

“Being entirely honest, a lot of us have been told to be grateful for so long. You do get to a point in your career where you think, yes, I am grateful, but there’s still so much room for improvement. That’s the point where we’ve got to now.

“Like resources for example, how can you expect to be at the top when your resources are at the bottom? When you meet somewhere in the middle, the expectation is fair, and we get that now, we get treated fairly. It’s good to see the progress on the pitch, but also to see it as a whole.”

Now in the runup to this summer’s competition, Rowe is looking forward to seeing the growth of the game in Wales.

“2025 is a moment of big change. There has been so much development so far, but this is the perfect opportunity, externally, to take women’s football seriously. There’s always been this expectation, but sometimes resources don’t meet that expectation.

“We’ve been building as a nation for years; women’s football has been building for years to get to a point of something big happening. It happened with England at the Euros, and my hope from getting to a major tournament is that it filters back down into the Adran Leagues and there’s change in that and more investment, and in five or ten years, we can see the progress.

“That’s what we’ve got to look at as a nation. When there is resources and investment, there is progress.”

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A Football Nation

Often, progress off the pitch goes hand in hand with progress on the pitch, and Wales are excelling at that as well.

Wales have started their Nations League campaign with a narrow loss away to Italy, before picking up a monumental draw at home to Sweden.

The draw against the Swedes highlights how far Wales have come, especially considering Rhian Wilkinson’s side could have won it at the end.

For Rowe, she believes Cymru are not that defensive side of old, and instead, they are side who are happy and content playing football.

“We’re transforming into a nation that plays football. We’ve always prided ourselves on our defensive organisation and being difficult to break down; that’s what our identity has always been, but now we’re developing into something else.

“That’s because we’re being given free rein to do that, and in the past, we haven’t been given that. On a training pitch, anyone can keep the ball, but to do it in a game with high stakes and where results have consequences, it’s exciting.

“To see the progress that’s happening and what’s happened over the last few years, and to see we’re not being stagnant and that we are trying to improve and having a philosophy is exciting.”

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Denmark danger

Friday night will certainly be a marker to see how far Wales have progressed, as they take on Denmark at Cardiff City Stadium.

The Danes were in Cymru’s League A group they last time they were there, and they handed Wales their biggest ever home defeat since 2014.

Rowe played in the 5-1 defeat, but she’s adamant they are a very different side now.

“In that home game, we conceded a couple within five to ten minutes. We’re far more prepared now on how to manage those moments, whereas in that game, we clearly weren’t.

“It was probably us not having the best game and them probably having a good game, and it was two different ends of the spectrum.

“There definitely isn’t that fear factor of, we know what happened last time against Denmark. The slate is clean and we’re going into this off the back of two good performances.”

And while we are only two games into this League A campaign, there is already a noticeable difference between this campaign and the last campaign in the top tier.

Rowe admitted Wales may have been a little fearful during their last League A outing, but now, they are going all out to try and avoid relegation.

“I think there was a bit of fear that first time around. We have an expectation in the group that we are going to compete, and sometimes that doesn’t happen. We’ve got ourselves in a much better position now to compete against League A opposition.

“There’s that internal belief that we can pick up points in any game, so as a collective we are in a completely different headspace. We’re not content coming bottom of the group and going back down, because that makes qualification harder. We know the stakes in these games, and that’s why we’re going full gas.”

Wales have so far sold 5,500 tickets for Friday night’s game, and the Southampton winger has encouraged those who’ve never watched their country to make the trip down for the game.

“Support is vital for us as players. It is like having an extra ten thousand players on the pitch. It’s that vocalness, that noise, and I guarantee if there was a statistic on it, you’re bound to perform better with more fans at games.

“If you’ve never been before, come and experience it. Nobody should ever decide they don’t like something when they’ve never tried it.”

(Featured Image: Ashley Crowden/FAW)