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Junior Blues In High Spirits

29th November 2004


What an evening and what a match! The Junior blues turned up in force last Friday for their big outing to the Millennium Stadium to watch Wales take on Japan and they could not have been happier as Wales ran in 14 tries to record a 98 – 0 victory, the biggest winning margin in Wales’ history.

The evening’s proceedings started at just after 5pm with over 80 children packing out the ’22 Club’ under the South Stand at Cardiff Arms Park.

They were treated to fun and games with family lounge hosts The Baker Brothers, and were being colourfully made up by our resident face painters when they received a visit from a special guest.

The one and only Gareth Edwards popped his head around the door to thank the juniors for supporting both the Blues and Wales, and reminded them of how important they are to the future of the game.

He had only stopped to say “Hello” but was happy to take a seat and talk to the youngsters whilst having his photo taken and signing autographs.

After filling their stomachs, playing games, getting their faces painted and mingling with rugby great, it was off to the Millennium Stadium to cheer on the national team for the Blues. A bumper crowd of over 55,000 cheered on Wales and the Junior Blues made themselves heard, shouting and singing to all 98 points scored by the boys.

The three Blues players in Wales’ starting line-up have a great sense of occasion and surely must have known that the Junior Blues were cheering them on from the stands as they accounted for 6 of Wales’ fourteen tries on the evening. Tom Shanklin helped himself to a hat-trick, Gethin Jenkins powered almost 30 metres for his try and Rhys Williams scored two, the second of which he sprinted in from 75 metres!

Wales’ newest sponsor Brains, who are also a proud sponsor of the Blues, were kind enough to give the Junior Blues ‘Try Cards’ to hold up after a players had scored but little did they realise that they would be holding them up 14 times!

The atmosphere in the stadium was electrifying and somewhat of a carnival as the crowd tried to emulate the action on the field with some action of their own and sent a ‘Mexican wave’ around the stadium nigh on 30 times!

As the referee blew his whistle for full time it brought a close to the Junior Blues evening, but it could not dampen the spirits of the youngsters who all went home comforted by the thought that they had just witnessed Wales’ biggest ever victory.