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Wales face Japan, New Zealand and Australia at the Principality Stadium this autumn, with a new A+ ticket category introduced
Wales v New Zealand is set to be packed out and a new A+ ticket category offers the best seats in the house(Image: Huw Evans Picture Agency Ltd)
The first-ever Nations Championship campaign is now just over two months away, with the new biennial 12-team tournament pitting the best sides from the northern and southern hemisphere against each other.
In a major shake-up to the global rugby calendar, Wales join fellow Six Nations sides England, Scotland, Ireland, France and Italy as the north’s representatives, with the southern hemisphere represented by the Rugby Championship teams – Australia, Argentina, South Africa and New Zealand – as well as Fiji and Japan.
The new competition will get underway with the first round of fixtures in July, with Wales travelling to Argentina and South Africa after also playing an ‘away’ game against Fiji at the Cardiff City Stadium.
However, when the tournament resumes in November, the Principality Stadium will play host to all the action, with Japan, New Zealand and Australia all visiting the Welsh capital before the finals weekend in London.
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Tickets for those Cardiff clashes are now on sale, with the Welsh Rugby Union providing new options for supporters looking to snap them up. For the first time, the WRU has offered fans the chance to select a Welsh rugby club of their choice to receive a £2 contribution from every ticket purchased, in a “direct investment into Welsh rugby from the ground up”.
However, that is not all, with fans also offered the opportunity to buy tickets in a brand new seating category, A+, which the union says offers “the best seats in the house”.
The seats are positioned at the front of the Principality Stadium’s middle tier, towards the centre of the pitch, and allow fans to “feel the noise” as they are “immersed in the heart of the action” and offered “the best, unparalleled views” and the “very best matchday experience”.
Unsurprisingly, the seats will not come cheap, with tickets on sale for £66 for the Japan game on November 7, £20 more than the next most-expensive tickets in category A.
For the Australia game on November 21, meanwhile, category A+ tickets are available for £78.
However, it is the visit of New Zealand on November 14 that offers the most expensive Wales autumn international ticket ever, with category A+ tickets for that game on sale for a whopping £128.
You can see the view from one of those seats below.
At the other end of the spectrum, however, the autumn fixtures will also see the WRU continue its more affordable price categories introduced last year, with adult category E tickets starting at £26 for the Japan game.
Newly-launched concession tickets are also available for students and under-18s, with prices for the latter group starting as low as £16.
Speaking to WalesOnline last month, WRU chief operating officer Gavin Marshall said there was a “real opportunity to grow ticket income”.
“We have changed our ticketing process for the autumn internationals, with more price categories and an opportunity to yield more from premium tickets,” he said. “But we also need to be smarter in how we price games, because at the moment we’re not selling out.
“We need to maximise those matchday opportunities so that we can invest more in our rugby ecosystem. To support the community game, we are going to pay £2 back for every ticket sold in the Nations Championship to community clubs.
“We’re encouraging supporters to buy tickets through their local club links,” Marshall added. “It’s the first time we’ve done it, and we need to communicate it well, but with three games in November we could pass back up to £400,000 to clubs, which would be great.”
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Wales’ home Nations Championship fixtures ticket details in full:
Wales v Japan (Saturday, November 7)
CAT A+ £66, CAT A £46 /U18s £23.50, CAT B £41, CAT C £36/ Students £25.50/ U18s £18.50, CAT AFZ C £36/ Students £25.50/ U18s £18.50, CAT D £31 /Students £22/ U18s £16, CAT AFZ D £31 / Students £22/ U18s £16, CAT E £26 /U18s £23.50
Wales v New Zealand (Saturday, November 14)
CAT A+ £128 CAT A £108 /U18s £55.50, CAT B £98, CAT C £88/ Students £62.50/ U18s £45.50, CAT AFZ C £88/ Students £62.50/ U18s £45.50, CAT D £78 /Students £55.50/ U18s £40.50, CAT AFZ D £78 /Students £55.50/ U18s £40.50, CAT E £68 /U18s £35.50
Wales v Australia (Saturday, November 21)
CAT A+ £78, CAT A £58 /U18s £30.50, CAT B £53, CAT C £48/ Students £34.50/ U18s £25.50, CAT AFZ C £48/ Students £34.50/ U18s £25.50, CAT D £43 /Students £31/ U18s £23, CAT AFZ D £43 /Students £31/ U18s £23, CAT E £38 /U18s £20.50
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