Wales teams eye Hockey World Cup qualifiers

Wales have named their 20-player squads for their 2026 Hockey World Cup qualifiers.

The men's team will compete in Santiago, Chile, from 1-8 March, where they are in a pool with Chile, France and Scotland.

The women's team travel to Hyderabad, India for games on 8-14 March and face Scotland, Uruguay and India in their pool.

Both sides will need to finish in the top two spots in their pool to keep their qualification hopes alive for August's World Cup in Belgium and the Netherlands.

The men's team qualified for the World Cup for the first time in their history in 2023, while the women's team have not qualified for the World Cup since the 1983 tournament.

Sixteen teams in total will qualify for the 2026 Hockey World Cup.

The top-ranked team in the 2023–24 and 2024–25 seasons in the FIH Pro League and the five continental champions have received automatic spots to the tournament alongside hosts Belgium and the Netherlands.

The remaining seven spots in each tournament are decided by two eight-team tournaments.

For the women's qualifying these tournaments are in Chile and India and for the men's they are in Egypt and Chile.

In each tournament the eight teams are divided into two four-team pools.

After the round-robin stage, the top two teams in each pool advance to the semi-finals.

The top three teams of each tournament will qualify for the World Cup, with the highest world-ranked fourth place team claiming the seventh and final qualification spot.

It is the third time in history that the men's and women's World Cups will be staged together.

Men's qualifying pool fixtures

1 March Wales v Chile (22:45 GMT)

3 March Wales v France (21:00 GMT)

4 March Scotland v Wales (21:00 GMT)

Women's qualifying pool fixtures

8 March Scotland v Wales (11:45 GMT)

9 March Uruguay v Wales (11:45 GMT)

11 March India v Wales (14:00 GMT)

The men's team qualified for the World Cup for the first time in 2023, finishing tied for 11th place with South Africa.

Head coach Danny Newcombe is keen to build on the work done in India.

"India was a phenomenal experience," he told BBC Sport Wales.

"To back that up and go again, that's what this group is about, it's push and let's go.

"If we qualify again it will be less of a surprise [at the tournament] and a focus on 'How do we do ourselves justice here to really perform?'

"We've got a real opportunity to do something special over the next couple of years and that's what we're here to do.

"You can't underestimate the collective miles in the tank of the group and the team's evolution with a sprinkling of young players to add some freshness.

"They love representing Wales, that stuff is pretty powerful when it gets tough."

The women's team narrowly missed out on qualification for 2022, with a 2-1 defeat by Ireland in their final qualifier.

Should Wales' women qualify, they would make their first World Cup appearance since 1983.

Head coach Kevin Johnson says his side's recent experiences will aid their qualification bid.

"In the last couple of tournaments we've turned near misses into medals," he said.

"Coming into this tournament, you have to deliver under pressure, but we're getting used to that and being in those games and what it means physically and mentally."

"We know we can run teams close, we know what our strengths are and we know how to ride out bits of pressure and dig deep.

"I've got a group here that carry a lot of threat and we can hurt teams."

The opposition in Wales' pool are familiar to Johnson.

"They're good teams," he told BBC Sport Wales.

"We know Scotland very well, a good team full of great players and we play them a lot so know a lot about them.

"We played Uruguay last summer and had a great game against them [a narrow 2-1 defeat].

"India are a real force, but we've had some good performances against them in previous Commonwealth Games and the Junior World Cup side had a really good performance against them recently.

"It would mean everything to us as a group [to qualify]."

Wales men squad (20)

Toby Reynolds-Cotterill (GK), Rhys Payne (GK), Daniel Kyriakides, Hywel Jones, Owen Sutton, Gareth Furlong, Alf Dinnie, Jacob Draper (C), Rhodri Furlong, Dale Hutchinson, Rhys Bradshaw, Fred Newbold, Gareth Griffiths, Ben Francis (C), Nic Morgan, Jack Pritchard, Jolyon Morgan, Sam Welsh, Jonny Fleck, Ben Wall.

Wales women squad (20)

Amy Hughes (GK), Ffion Horrell (GK), Beth Bingham (C), Caitlin Witham, Rebecca Daniel, Emily Drysdale, Amy Cradden, Holly Done, Izzie Howell, Tilly Edwards, Katie Partridge, Sarah Jones, Millie Holme, Anja Atkin, Lottie Atkinson, Betsan Thomas, Lily Roberts, Jamie Bulbring, Rachel Goodwin, Beth Peers