Rugby evening headlines as Wales coach 'does a number' on friend and Nigel Owens worried for future of rugby's selling point

Here are the latest rugby evening headlines on Sunday, March 27, after round one of the Women's Six Nations came to an end.

Wales head coach Ioan Cunningham did "a good number on" Ireland coach Greg McWilliams in the opening round of the Women's Six Nations, according to the Irish boss.

The pair are actually part of a coaches' WhatsApp group set up by Bernard Jackman, with Cunningham joking pre-match that he could not disclose any of the pre-match build-up in the group in case he was ejected.

Wales came from behind to record a 27-19 opening-round win in Dublin to mark a major step forward since their last match against the Irish, a 45-0 defeat last season which marked the real low point for the team and prompted investment from the Welsh Rugby Union which now sees 12 full-time and 12 part-time players among the team's ranks.

"I think you saw Wales come in and in fairness to Ioan, I caught up with him before the game, I caught up with him there afterwards," McWilliams said. "He should be a really proud coach, I thought he did a good number on me, particularly in how he used his bench. Fair play to Wales.

"They got on top of us physically in the second half. We struggled to exit. The yellow card [for Eimear Considine] in the last 10 minutes was tough. I felt their bench came on and added real strength and an impact, and we couldn’t cope with it. Again, like everything else now, as a coaching group and as a player group, we’ve got to own that performance as well."

McWilliams also suggested that relatively small investment can reap rewards in international women's rugby very quickly, given the bar for investment is low compared to the men's game. Wales Women's budget has been upped to £2million this season, which ends with a