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Wales Online
Wales Online
Sport
Dylan James

Warren Gatland and his wife make speech to Wales players' families on special day

The Wales coaching staff put on a special family day for the players ahead of their training camp in Switzerland.

The 47-strong squad are heading out to Fiesch on Monday, so Warren Gatland and team manager Martyn Williams believed it was important to provide some valuable family time amid the sacrifice of World Cup preparations.

The squad number is actually set to become 48 this week, with new Scarlets signing Taine Plumtree expected to fly out with the team.

Wales will spend two weeks out in central Europe to undertake crucial altitude training which will bolster their cardiovascular fitness ahead of a brutal World Cup campaign. From there, they had to Turkey for another camp, before spending two months away from home in September and October at the tournament in France.

Team manager Williams kicked off by explaining to players why the family day had been put on, saying: "We're going to be away so much over the next three or four months, I think when you can get home, it's important to get home with your families."

Gatland reinforced Williams' point, telling the squad: "Like we've said, family stuff is incredibly important. We've got to get that balance right between the work we do here, the hard work, but also your family comes first and it's always been a big part of that for us."

You can watch the video from the family day below.

The families were invited to the training barn at the National Centre of Excellence in the Vale, where a bouncy castle was set up for the children, along with food and drinks for everyone.

Williams addressed the collective group, saying: "Can I just say a massive thanks to everyone, I know a lot of you have travelled a long way today, come up, brought the kids up as well. Look, we felt we're going to be away a lot for the next three months for a long period. So we thought it was really important that we come together before we go away."

Gatland reiterated the importance of downtime: "It's great to see so many people here, particularly all the kids. The big thing in terms of us is making sure that we want to look after the families, partners, kids. If we can get that right, then we can go some way in to getting other things right."

Players can be seen feeding their babies and chatting with the families of their team-mates.

Dan Biggar said: "The more we can do things like this, then the better it will be." (WRU on Twitter)

Trudi Gatland, wife of the Wales coach, announced herself as a first point of contact for the each family: "First of all today, I've spent most of the day in my phone and putting you all in to the WhatsApp group so that we've got a way of being in touch with each other. That WhatsApp group is for us to keep connected. Anything you need, WhatsApp me, I'll tell Warren to sort it!"

Trudi has previously taken it upon herself to ensure the player's families were happy, got to the games on time and were looked after during the 2019 World Cup in Japan.

Dan Biggar, who joined up with the squad slightly later after Toulon's Challenge Cup success, said it was brilliant to have a day like this. He said: "We've had a bit of a family do, a bit of a barbecue, some drinks for the girls and the kids, just had a bit of a play around in the barn.

"It's been interesting for the players, because we've had a bit of a tough afternoon and we're straight in to another job then for a couple of hours but it's been brilliant.

"To be fair to all the staff, they put a brilliant couple of hours on for us, it gives everyone a chance to get together. This summer in particular is so difficult because we're all away so often and things like that, but it's been great seeing everyone and the kids have been enjoying it. The more we can do things like this, then the better it will be. It's been brilliant."

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