Wales' hockey team crowdfunding for World Cup

Jack Pritchard was one of the goalscorers in Wales' 5-0 win over Scotland in their World Cup qualifying pool.

He said the challenges of a part-time programme are felt by the players.

"It's a difficult balance to get right between training and the day job," added Pritchard.

"We've got a range of ages, some are students, some of them are working full-time, some are working part-time.

"A lot of the guys come down from London, places like Nottingham and Birmingham, that sort of stuff."

Pritchard admitted it was "an ask on people" to combine work with hockey.

"Being a part-time programme, we have to fund ourselves year in year out," he said.

"The cost is going up so we have to do something about it."

Hockey Wales chief executive officer Paul Whapham said the overall costs to prepare for the World Cup are £150,000.

"We've had to try to find that in four months," he added.

"That's a difficult task whatever sport you're in and extremely difficult when you're largely amateur and with the resources we have in hockey.

"Financially we're not paid to go to the World Cup, everything we do is self-financed."

Despite the financial pressures, Whapham hoped the next generation will be inspired by the efforts of the team on the world stage.

"People in clubs can look at people and say, 'If they can do it, why can't I?'," he said.

"At the grassroots level we're still seeing more young players come through to play the game. Hopefully we get more of them playing from September.

"It's a great achievement of the men, to repeat the feat [of qualification] and to go back this time is really tremendous.

"It gives us a shop window to inspire some younger people to take up the sport and it's a huge testament to their work-life balance."

Wales have played warm-up games against England and Australia and will travel to Spain for further games to prepare for the World Cup.

They will also take on Chile in Cardiff, before facing the Chileans in three Test matches in the Welsh capital, and then heading to the Netherlands for their World Cup pool matches, with opponents including England, Pakistan and India.

Men's Hockey World Cup Pool D fixtures:

15 Aug 12:00 BST India v Wales

15 Aug 18:00 BST England v Pakistan

17 Aug 11:30 BST Pakistan v Wales

17 Aug 14:00 BST India v England

19 Aug 11:30 BST England v Wales

19 Aug 14:00 BST Pakistan v India