Nations Championship: What Argentina-bound Wales learned from win over Fiji

The main negative for Wales rugby was the match was played in front of a disappointing crowd of 16,456 in the first ever rugby international at Cardiff City’s football stadium, which had a capacity of over 33,000.

This victorious Wales team, who defeated a team two places above them in the world rankings, deserved to celebrate this success in front of more fans.

International rugby is supposed to be top notch and shouldn’t be done in front of thousands of empty seats.

It was the second week in a row that the Welsh men’s team played in front of overwhelming crowds After a 33-31 win against the Barbarians at the Allianz Stadium where two of the three Twickenham stands were closed.

Now we have Cardiff City Stadium failing to sell out despite a fan-friendly mid-afternoon kick-off.

It’s an away Wales game regardless of semantics Fiji chose to host their “home” matches in Cardiff, Welsh rugby bosses should be worried because it was a bad look for a global audience.

It was the only chance for Wales fans to see their own national team in a competitive game in Cardiff this summer against one of the most entertaining teams in world rugby in a new tournament.

It proved the lowest crowd of the six opening weekend Nations Championship matches, with Japan’s win over Italy attracting 21,000.

We look forward to seeing what crowds the Fijians get in Liverpool against England and Scotland over the next two weeks.

Just 70,000 fans watched Wales beat Italy at the Principality Stadium in mid-March, so where did those 53,000 fans go?

Factors such as poor results, apathy towards summer rugby, international rugby overkill and Cardiff City Stadium not being seen as an attractive venue as a principality stadium must be considered.

Armchair fans will have to focus on the summer’s other major sporting events, such as football’s World Cup, Wimbledon and Formula One’s British Grand Prix, while 35,000 people watched American rapper Pitbull perform at an outdoor concert in Cardiff.

But the WRU, who will be more focused on marketing their actual home games against New Zealand, Australia and Japan in November than they will directly benefit from, must not overlook how fed up the Welsh public are with how the domestic game is being run.

this week Pay in line with Welsh playersJust another debate in a long listHighlighting the negativity surrounding Wales’ game.

With Wales starting to get their act together and delivering on the field, it’s time the WRU emulated it off the pitch.