At 38 years of age, Jess Fishlock is the most senior member of the travelling Wales party.<\/p>\n
The Seattle Reign midfielder – whose tally of 162 caps and 47 goals for her country are records – is perhaps the most deserving of a place on the plane given her remarkable contributions in the Welsh jersey since making her senior debut against the Swiss in 2006.<\/p>\n
And Fishlock paid a touching tribute to those who had made their way to Rhoose to deliver the perfect send off for the history-making Welsh squad.<\/p>\n
“This is beautiful and it means so much to local clubs. It’s everything we’ve ever wanted,” she said.<\/p>\n
All 23 squad players and boss Wilkinson posed together for one final photograph for the assembled media from the aeroplane’s staircase prior to boarding the Boeing 737.<\/p>\n
The aircraft itself was given one last send off prior to leaving the Welsh tarmac as it rolled between two fire and rescue trucks spraying water to give a cannon salute – traditionally reserved for a plane’s first flight.<\/p>\n
James is undoubtedly aware of the scale of the task that lies ahead for Wales – who face France on 9 July and England on 13 July after their opener against the Dutch.<\/p>\n
But the 31-year-old issued something of a warning to those who are underestimating Wilkinson’s team.<\/p>\n
“We’re excited for the challenge. People think Wales will be easy, but we won’t, we always give 100%,” concluded the 132-cap international.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At 38 years of age, Jess Fishlock is the most senior member of the travelling Wales party. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5010],"tags":[748,4884,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-205933","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wales","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114728884307399522","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}