It cost £4million to establish Welsh rugby's new centre of excellence but the long-term benefits could prove priceless.

When Wales last beat the mighty All Blacks 56 years ago, their players travelled by train, bus and car on the morning of the match, meeting up for lunch to discuss tactics.

Test week preparations had been limited, to say the least, with just one training session taking place barely 24 hours before kick-off a day after the team was announced.

When the Wales squad departs for Cardiff to face New Zealand this weekend, they will do so from a state-of-the-art training base that nestles deep in the Vale of Glamorgan countryside.

And it is a facility that might easily become the envy of world rugby.

There are four training pitches, including an indoor facility, one with floodlights and one that replicates exact Millennium Stadium pitch dimensions.

Elsewhere on site is a purpose-built gymnasium, team rooms, training and administration blocks that house the senior national squad backroom staff headed by Wales coach Warren Gatland, in addition to Welsh Rugby Union head of performance and development Joe Lydon and the WRU's newly-formed national academy.

Lydon oversees Wales' international pathway structure for players, coaches and match officials at a venue that will allow all of the national squads - from under-16s upwards - to access the training and support facilities.

It is a "finishing school" possibly without equal in rugby terms, and leaves Lydon totally enthused by what greets him every working day.

"This new facility compares with anything I have seen or worked at in the world game," said Lydon, a former Great Britain rugby league international, whose previous roles in the union game included those of England backs coach and England sevens supremo.

"It represents a major step forward for the whole of Welsh rugby.

"We now operate to a philosophy that is player and coach-centred, development-driven and competition-supported which will be expressed across a range of disciplines under one roof at the new centre.

"This is an aspirational environment within which every young player will know they are being given the opportunity to achieve something special with their lives.

"Nothing is now left to chance, and the systems, structures and people we have in place will deliver huge benefits for the future of Welsh rugby.

"We all know the demands on skill, power, game understanding and conditioning our best players face these days, and we must give them proper, professional and structured help to achieve their full potential.

"Welsh rugby boasts a proud and incredible history which is built into the spiritual fabric of the National Centre of Excellence, and I am certain every player who enters those doors will walk out inspired to give of their best for Wales.

"A world-class training and development facility for selected athletes, coaches and match officials has been developed.

"Facilities like these do not guarantee success, but they provide the opportunity from which individual and collective success can be earned."

Gatland, who has coached in his native New Zealand, Ireland, England and now Wales, added: "In terms of the facility and environment, I haven't seen anything else that compares.

"The centre is about the long-term development of the game. As a one-stop facility, it is absolutely fantastic."

Among the squads now in-house are Wales' World Cup-winning sevens group, whose testing global programme and training demands often brought acute difficulties.

"Only last year, we had to prepare for our International Rugby Board world sevens tournaments and the Rugby World Cup Sevens on various pitches around Wales," recalled head coach Paul John.

"Sometimes, we would have to change training venues at the last minute due to the weather and pitch quality.

"And being able to train on our doorstep, come rain or shine, is already making a massive difference to our training and preparation."

Perhaps the whole project though, is best summed up by current Wales fly-half Stephen Jones, who made his Test debut 11 years ago and can fully appreciate the seismic changes in training conditions.

"We have come so far in the last 11 years," he said.

"Back then (1998), we were a long way from the leading sides in the world, but now we firmly believe we can beat anybody on our day. Our aim is to become the number one team in the world.

"That is now an attainable goal."