View From The Field: Ward’s Words (Helen Ward column)

Days from the birth of her second child, Helen Ward writes about training through a pregnancy with the guidance she lacked the first time, and about finally putting the dumbbells down in the last week, which was harder than she expected. Time away also let her work out where to play next: with Wales a priority, and Jayne Ludlow’s view in mind, she needed somewhere she would be happy and playing regularly, and Keith Boanas’s arrival made Watford – the club where her career began – possible again. On the Euros she rejects the idea that the big nations failed to show up, preferring to see other countries taking their women’s teams seriously and closing the gap, and hopes Wales might be the ones doing it in France.