Venue: Stade de Marseille, Marseille Date: Saturday 14 October Kick-off: 16:00 BST |
Coverage: Live BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Cymru, BBC Radio 5 Live Sport, BBC Sounds, BBC Sport website & app; live text commentary on BBC Sport website & app |
The message has been short and simple all week. Wales are not ready to go home.
When the Wales football team marched to the Euro 2016 semi-finals in France, the terrace anthem of “Don’t take me home” became synonymous with that stunning summer of Welsh sport.
Seven years on, the mantra is the same for the country’s rugby stars as they aim to book their own last-four place in a major tournament by beating Argentina.
So the 2023 World Cup odyssey will today take Warren Gatland’s side to France’s oldest and second largest city as a festival of quarter-final rugby descends on Marseille.
While the Stade de France in Paris will host Ireland and New Zealand and France and South Africa, all Welsh eyes will be further south on the Mediterranean port city as Gatland’s charges take on the Pumas before England tackle Fiji 24 hours later.
Wales fans have a fifth city to visit after already travelling to watch their side win in Bordeaux, Nice, Lyon and Nantes, with supporters from four nations flooding into the famous Le Vieux-Port.
The football fans never made it to Marseille in 2016 while the rugby supporters missed out on the opportunity to follow Wales in 2007 when Gareth Jenkins’ side were knocked out of the World Cup in the group stages by Fiji. They plan to make the most of it this weekend.
Favourites or underdogs?
Argentina coach Michael Cheika was spotted talking to his Fiji opposite number Simon Raiwalui down in the “Old Port” on Thursday evening.
Perhaps they were exchanging notes on the opposition they face this weekend after Wales had defeated Fiji and Argentina lost to England in the group stages.
In the…
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