GOING, GOING . . . . ALMOST GONE!!
Graham Henry’s newly crowned Tri-Nations champions and Lion tamers New Zealand, former double World Champions Australia and South Africa come to Cardiff in November to meet the reigning Six Nations Champions and seats are selling fast via the WRU’s member clubs.
And as well as doing battle with three of the four side’s who head Mike Ruddock’s men in the official IRB World Rankings, Wales will also meet their 2007 World Cup opponents Fiji in the same month. Tickets for that game are only £10 and £5 and are currently in plentiful supply.
“The Welsh fans were magnificent in their support of Mike’s team throughout last season and helped us reach 83% occupancy during our four-match Autumn Series,” said WRU Group Chief Executive David Moffett. “We had successive championship record gates of 74,197 and 74,500 for our home Six Nations matches against England and Ireland last season, and the way the tickets have been selling for New Zealand, South Africa and Australia we could be putting up the ‘sold-out’ signs very soon for those games.
“The concessionary price offered to clubs of £99 for a ticket to all three games (top price individual tickets are £45) against the Tri-Nations teams has proved incredibly popular with 30,000 packages already taken up.
“The clubs, under the terms of our constitution, are entitled to 40,058 tickets per game at the Millennium Stadium and we will be offering them one last chance to buy up any remaining packages in the next 10 days before deciding how many are left, if any, to put on public sale.
“The £99 bundle offer for the three games against the Tri-Nation sides was extended to our Debenture Holders and take up has also been exceptionally high with over 15 000 tickets already gone for all three of these matches.
“Both the New Zealand and Australian Unions have taken their full allocation of 5,500 tickets for November with South Africa looking to take an equalling high number of tickets. These will be sold to their travelling fans and to ex-pats around Europe.
“The clubs have done a great job over the summer in promoting these games and the level of interest in seeing our Grand Slam Six Nations champions testing themselves against the best teams in the world is sky high. It promises to be the best Autumn Series we’ve ever seen in Wales.”
Information on ticket availability for the general public will be posted on the WRU website (www.wru.co.uk) on Tuesday, 27 September. This won’t be the actual day on which any remaining tickets will be put on sale, but fans will be told how and when they will be able to purchase tickets.
“We want to try to be fair to everyone and we feel the new system we put in place last year worked exceptionally well. The clubs always get the first chance to sell to their loyal members and their uptake of the maximum 40,058 allocation just keeps on growing,” added Moffett. “If that means there are more members joining clubs, then that is another huge positive for Welsh rugby. And if it means we get close to our goal of selling-out our four Autumn Series matches then that will be even better news for the game.
“Just as in last year’s Series, when we played Japan and Romania as well as New Zealand and South Africa, there will be a chance for mums and dads to bring their children to see their heroes play when they tackle Fiji on Friday, 11 November. That’s why we have deliberately kept prices low for that game.
“But as to how many, if any, tickets we will be able to offer for general sale for the other three matches I simply cannot say at this time. What I do know is there are still 326 of the ‘125th Anniversary’ debentures left and that by buying one of these, you can guarantee yourself one of the best seats in the house for all WRU home games for 25 years.”
The WRU have already taken £2.9m in sales from the latest debenture issue, which was offered last spring. They cost £6,000 each which is redeemable after the 25 year period. Details on debentures are available by calling the WRU on 029 2082 2431 or 029 2082 2432, or by requesting a prospectus via e-mail from debenture@wru.co.uk.
WRU 125 ANNIVERSARY SEASON AUTUMN SERIES
Sat 05 Nov – Wales v New Zealand (kick-off 4.00pm)
Fri 11 Nov – Wales v Fiji (kick-off 7.30pm)
Sat 19 Nov – Wales v South Africa (kick-off 5.00pm)
Sat 26 Nov – Wales v Australia (kick-off 5.00pm)
