Wales Online Prize Winner’s Day

In September, to mark the start of the 2016/17 rugby season, we ran a competition for readers of Wales Online and the Daily Post Online to win a money-can’t-buy prize for Wales v Japan in the Under Armour Series at Principality Stadium on Saturday 19 November.

As Official Travel Supplier to the Welsh Rugby Union, we were able to provide our prize winner with a behind the scenes tour on a matchday (including changing room visit, all set up ready for the match), plus tickets right behind the Welsh dugout and attendance at the post-match press conference.

Here’s what our winner Dean and his partner Kayleigh had to say…

“We met Vicky from Gullivers at the rugby posts on Westgate Street ready to be collected for our pre-match tour. We were grateful to get inside as the heavens opened!

We firstly went to the WRU International Players Lounge, before making our way through the corridors towards the Welsh changing room. We were lucky to walk past all the Japanese dignitaries as well as Ryan Jones, then had our photo taken at the press board near the tunnel.

We then went into the changing room - seeing all the shirts hung up and the backroom staff setting up was rather special – and we then walked down the tunnel to go to the side of the pitch then up to the President’s Box. Even when the stadium is empty, it is still impressive!

We got to our seats in time to see Wales warming up and watched the choirs perform. We had great seats – we’ve never sat so close to the team before. It was a great match to watch – too close, mind – and great to see Wales get the win in the dying moments of the game. The Japanese team were so humble in defeat though – they lined up in front of us to bow in front of all of their fans in our stand to thank them for their support.

We were then met by Ed from the WRU who escorted us up to the post-match press conference. There were a lot of jealous faces from people lining the tunnel up in the stands to see us walking up after the players, especially as we managed to get a photo with Martyn Williams!

The public aren’t allowed to go into press conferences, so it was a real treat. Hearing directly from Rob Howley and Sam Warburton was pretty cool – you only get to see a little bit on the TV.

Vicky then presented us with the signed shirt that was also part of the prize, before we headed to The Vale (the Wales team hotel) to try and hunt some autographs!

It was a great day, thank you to Gullivers and the Welsh Rugby Union for having us.”

You can view the full photo album on our Facebook page.