A NEW £4m Welsh Rugby Union national centre of excellence which will provide facilities unrivalled in the rugby world has been opened at the Vale of Glamorgan.

The Sports Council for Wales has invested £1.5m of national lottery funding and the WRU provided £1m required to complete the project.

There are three outdoor full size pitches along with external skills training zones where players can focus on scrum and line-out technique and performance.

One of the three pitches has an all-weather surface and is fully floodlit to allow day or night time sessions to take place all year round.

Alongside that 3G all-weather pitch is a second full size grass pitch which is fully floodlit to TV broadcast quality standard.

The third outdoor pitch has an international match quality grass surface and is exactly the same size as the pitch at the Millennium Stadium.

The main building at the centre of excellence contains two administration and training blocks, changing rooms, team rooms, a fully equipped gym and an indoor artificial 3G pitch of the same quality as the outdoor one.

One administration block in the building houses the senior national squad backroom team of head coach Warren Gatland, plus his assistants, analysts, conditioners, physiotherapists, medical team and squad administration staff.

On the opposite side of the national centre of excellence, under the WRU head of performance and excellence Joe Lydon is based the Wales international pathway structure for players, coaches and match officials plus the national academy.

WRU chief executive Roger Lewis said, “I’m delighted Wales now has an international training and development facility which will be the envy of the rugby playing world.

“It has taken a tremendous amount of hard work and commitment to achieve this and the end result is a national centre of excellence the whole of Wales can be proud of.

“The centre represents a statement to the rest of the world that we are truly committed to the priority of creating a winning Wales team which will be the driving force to sustain our national sport for generations to come.”

Gatland added, “We have now created an inspirational working environment where the coaches and players can now focus on development and match preparation.

“One of our core values is that each player holds a responsibility to the Welsh jersey and if we ask them to give their all for that we have a duty to help them as much and as professionally as we can.

“By creating this fantastic facility we are treating all our players with the utmost respect and now we can aske them to deliver their best for Wales.

“We are already enjoying the benefits of working together under one roof and at one base, so we all get plenty of opportunity to engage and share ideas.

“The national centre of excellence is about the long term development of the game.

“In terms of the facility and environment I haven’t seen anything else that compares,” he added.

“As a one-stop facility this is absolutely fantastic.”