I blagged my way into Wales vs Uruguay and got front row seats

With the most eagerly anticipated event of world rugby happening right now here in the UK, it’s no surprise  tickets sold out almost immediately.

Fans have travelled from the far corners of the world to see the likes of rugby giants such as New Zealand and Australia competing with some of our own home nations for the Webb Ellis cup, and we spoke to Dan Jardine, the plucky third year NTU Broadcast Journalist who managed to make it into Wales’ opening World Cup fixture without paying a penny.

Egg fever

Dan’s story

I just turned up to soak up the match day atmosphere when an extraordinary turn of events led me to be sitting in the front row of Wales’ first group game of the 2015 Rugby World Cup.

Contrary to my Welsh heritage I’d call myself more of a football fanatic but who can turn down the opportunity of watching a Welsh rugby game in Cardiff on a match day?

So there I was in my flat, bored out of my mind, mostly tired and hungover. Somehow I managed to shell out an excessive £12.60 on a taxi ride to the train station to pick up my mate, a film studies third year from Newport Uni, Guto Thomas.

It was clear Guto was also pretty hungover after a four day bender in Newport – the home of cheesy chips, Goldie Lookin’ Chain and Dirty Sanchez. Without much chit chat we decided the best cure was to get straight back on the beers.

I cracked out a four pack of cheap Strongbow and we began walking over to the Fanzone, which fortunately was right next to the Millennium stadium. Because of poor timing and a hungover state of mind we had timed the whole thing a bit wrong, and the game was already twenty minutes in.

Cardiff was electric, most of the streets had been closed off and every pub in sight was crammed like a subway train in Japan. The drinks were flowing and the passionate Welsh were as rowdy as ever.

After sinking our second horrible tasting can we took a side-street past the main stadium’s entrance and spotted a group of about 20 co-ordinated, brightly dressed choir singers all wearing large clearance passes around their necks.

I briskly clamber behind him, hoping to catch the hilarious moment when he’s shut down by a security guard. However this doesn’t happen. In no time we’ve ended up joining on to the end of the trail of the brightly dressed choir ensemble.

Sticking out like a sore thumb in our Wales rugby jerseys, hoodies and a can of Strongbow still in our hands we kept our heads down and kept quiet.

I was expecting the large, hairy hand of a security steward to grab me by the scruff of the neck at any moment, avoiding eye contact with any of the 10 security people manning the gate we slipped straight in.

Without saying a word we broke off from the crowd and strutted inside the stadium quickly looking for a place to sit, speechless because we’d managed to get into the Millennium stadium with such ease.

There didn’t seem to be many seats available at all so we decided to finish our cans and grab an overpriced stadium beer to make us look a little less suspicious, as the constant fear in our eyes and frantically searching for a seat was starting to undo all of our good work.

Best seats in the house

Eventually we spotted a large number of empty seats right down in the front behind the Welsh try line, top of the range seats which would’ve probably cost some dummy £85 or more. With these golden seats and a beer in our hands we started to relax, we’d done it. From what seemed like a tame afternoon, had turned into an epic show of pure luck and bravery.

If that wasn’t enough of a bonus, the try line we were sitting in front of was the one the Welsh were attacking in the second half. This gave us the best seats in the house to see Gareth Davies and the boys put the ball over the line for a comfortable 54-9 win against Uruguay.

@JardineOfficial