Millenium Magic Weekend in Cardiff

This weekend I met up with my previous colleagues and all the rugby referees I used to work with prior to moving to Cardiff. On Friday I met up with a few of them for a nice Italian meal, a quiet start before the next two busy days of work ahead. On Saturday there were 4 matches in total, which meant that this was the busiest day. There were 3 of us working together which meant we were able to do one referee or touch judge each before and after every game. Since the matches started every 2 hours we ended up spending most of our time in the changing rooms working, but we still managed to watch a bit of the some of the matches in between. We also had a big tv in the changing rooms so we could watch a bit of the matches whilst working, even though this was with about 5 seconds delay from live play so we would always hear when a try was scored before we could see it on the tv :) The last match finished around 8.45 so by the time we were finished treating the last group of referees and were able to leave the stadium it was nearly 10 pm. We went for a quick noodle meal in Wagamama with some of the other referees before I headed back to get some sleep before the next day.

  

On Sunday there were only 3 matches which meant it was a bit easier then the day before. We finished around 6 pm and I was home on the sofa for around 7.30 which was lovely! It was a really good weekend of hard work, and it was great to meet everyone again. There were loads of laughter and banter as usual which is always a bonus when working at an event like this!

Here you can see the stadium from the outside, the capacity is about 70 000 so it is a big stadium! They put the roof on both days so although the stadium was far from full the atmosphere was pretty good!