WALES women’s boss Jayne Ludlow is bursting with pride following her side’s remarkable journey to the brink of World Cup qualification – but she reckons there is plenty more to come from a team that could make history in Newport tonight.

Next year’s finals in France await Ludlow’s charges providing they can beat Phil Neville’s England, who are ranked fourth in the world, at Rodney Parade (kick-off 7.45pm).

Wales lead Group 1 by a single point with one match of their qualifying campaign left, while England’s final pool stage fixture is in Kazakhstan on Tuesday.

A sell-out crowd will cheer on the hosts tonight as captain Sophie Ingle bids to guide Wales to a first ever women’s World Cup.

Plenty of the pre-game talk has been about the choice of stadium and Neville labelling the contest a “grudge match”, but Ludlow and her squad have remained focused on the task at hand.

The Wales manager is immensely proud of what her players have achieved to top the group – they haven’t conceded a goal yet in qualifying – and is excited for the future of women’s football in Wales.

“I’m smiling lots because I’m thinking of what is coming in the future,” she said.

“Everything we’re trying to do within Wales for females is bigger than just our national senior team, but thankfully they are getting the profile for the things we’re trying to do.

“Every single one of us is striving to do better, which is kind of our motto, and there’s lots of work behind the scenes that has to go on.

“We’re very pleased with where we’re at right now but there is actually far more to come from us.”

She added: “It’s great because it’s what these players have deserved for a long time and there’s lots of reasons why they haven’t had it.

“A big part of it is results, and now they are actually getting the results they deserve.

“They’re working hard enough for them and thankfully they are getting them.

“It has been a fantastic campaign and I’m very proud of what these guys have done.

“If we can meet this challenge on Friday it shows we are growing, perhaps faster than some people would have expected.”

Rhondda-born former international Ludlow has admitted that automatic qualification wasn’t necessarily at the forefront of everyone’s minds when the campaign started.

“Originally, our aim was to compete, but the targets changed as we went through because we had results that maybe people weren’t expecting,” she said.

“Later in the campaign we said ‘let’s get to the last game and still have a chance of qualification’.

“That’s where we’re at so we’re really pleased we’re in this eighth game and there’s still a chance of automatic qualification, let alone the play-offs.

“When we started this campaign it would have been ‘let’s really try to get a play-off place’, but potentially we could go one better than that.

“We’re happy and looking forward to a big challenge.

“Everything has gone as usual for us, no big changes, the environment we’ve created so far through this campaign within training is very similar to what it has been, and it works for us.”