Former Bluebird Aaron Wainwright reflects despite Los Pumas contest looming

The Leicester Tigers-bound player was destined for a career in football, as he played for Cardiff City from under 9 to 16, and even made it into the U16 Wales squad.

However, once he turned 17 and after playing for his beloved Whiteheads RFC and studying at Cardiff Metropolitan University, he caught the eye of the Dragons selectors after competing in the BUCS Super Rugby competition.

Following Wales’ victory over Fiji, Wainwright reflected on his time with Cardiff City and what it meant to play at the Cardiff City Stadium in front of a home crowd after never doing so as a footballer.

“I don’t think I ever played here,” said Wainwright, who is now one of Wales’ most experienced back-row players.

“I did many a team photo shoot going up through the ranks.

For Wainwright, Cardiff City Stadium was no stranger to rugby, having previously played for the Dragons there. But the former Dragons back row could not help but reflect on the football career that never afforded him the chance to play there.

It was a crowd of 16,456 in the first rugby international played at Cardiff City’s football stadium, which has a capacity of more than 33,000.

Despite the lack of fans in attendance on Saturday afternoon, Wales were made to work hard to put aside Fiji 39-24 in their opening Nations Championship match.

Second-half scores by Rhys Carré, Josh Adams, Ryan Elias, and Eddie James were accompanied by Jac Morgan claiming a brace in the opening 40 minutes.

Dan Edwards kicked seven points from the tee, as replacement Sam Costelow added four, which guided Wales to record back-to-back Test wins for the first time since the 2023 Rugby World Cup (Australia and Georgia).

Despite it not being a Test win, Wales have started this summer campaign off two from two after last weekend’s narrow victory against the Barbarians in an uncapped fixture.

They are also carrying momentum from the Six Nations, which saw Wales claim a confidence-boosting win against Italy, in which Wainwright scored twice.

“It’s three wins from the last three games,” Wainwright continued. “I spoke last week just about controlling some of the chaos, and again it was quite hard to do that this week.

“I thought, especially when we went to our set piece game, we really took control there.

“Went to our set piece quite a bit and I thought the front five forwards really dug in and set the platform.”

Following Wales’ curtain-raiser against the Flying Fijians, they head south of the equator to face Argentina in San Juan before then travelling across five time zones the following week to take on the world champions, South Africa, in Durban.

Wainwright heads back to western Argentina, where he made his international debut in June 2018 as a second-half replacement.

‘Won my first cap out there in San Juan. So yeah, excited to go back and revisit,” he said.

On what he expects from Argentina, who were involved in a 12-try thriller in Cordoba, losing 47-38 against Scotland, he added: “Probably a bit more controlled compared to Fiji and the team we played today.

“More of an arm wrestle set piece time. For us, we just need to keep concentrating on what we’ve been doing well and what we can control.

“Just keep building on the wins. I think it starts to become a habit; belief starts to build.

“So just keep buying into that and what the coaches are asking of us.”

Since Wales last toured over eight years ago for a two-Test series against Los Pumas, then Warren Gatland’s side comfortably won the series 2-0. They were triumphant 23-10 in San Juan before an impressive 30-12 victory in Santa Fe.

Alongside Wainwright, Dillon Lewis, Adam Beard, Josh Adams, Ryan Elias, Nicky Smith, and Tomos Williams, all selected in Steve Tandy’s 33-man squad this summer, were all included on Wales’ last visit to Argentina.

“Yeah, obviously travel is something that we’re going to have to face and get around,” said Wainwright on the logistics of this summer's campaign.

On the experience of facing Los Pumas in Argentina, he added: “From what I can remember last time, a very hostile crowd and a loud crowd, with all the fencing stopping the fans from getting on the pitch, I suppose, is what I remember from last time.