The change was made after widespread calls from campaigners for action to be taken
Wales will not wear their traditional red jerseys when they take to the field against Ireland on Friday night, with Steve Tandy’s side donning an alternate kit for their Six Nations clash in Dublin.
Off the back of their heartbreaking narrow defeat to Scotland last month, Tandy’s men face Andy Farrell’s side in the first fixture of the fourth round of this year’s championship at the Aviva Stadium. However, while they have traditionally done so in red, they have been forced into a change following a historic move last year.
Over the years, the combination of Welsh red and Irish green has proved frustrating for fans with colour blindness, which affects around one in 12 men and one in 200 women according to the NHS.
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Red-green colour blindness is the most common form of the condition, with campaigners calling for years for either Wales or Ireland to play in a changed strip when they played each other.
Those calls were finally answered last January when World Rugby’s colour blindness guidelines became policy in all of the governing body’s competitions, with teams now mandated to avoid kit clashes which could negatively impact colour blind viewers.
As well as avoiding clashes between red and green, the guidelines also advise that “one team should play in a dark kit and the other in a light kit” to prevent any further issues.
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World Rugby also recommends that teams who play primarily in a dark colour should have a light alternate kit, and vice versa, which is why Wales changed their away shirt from black to white last season.
The guidelines also state that “primary and alternate kits should be able to play against each other without causing a colour blind kit clash”, with Ireland donning a white kit in Cardiff when the two sides met in last year’s Six Nations.
For this year’s fixture, however, it is Wales who will don their white alternate kit, which was launched last summer and worn in their autumn international win over Japan.
Last year’s move was welcomed by campaigners including Kathryn Albany-Ward, founder of Colour Blind Awareness, who told the Daily Mail at the time: “Finally, they are going to make sure that colour-blind people can follow the game.
“Many thousands of fans will be delighted. I hope it is going to continue and isn’t a one-off. This benefits everyone – including the players who often don’t feel they are able to speak up. If eight per cent of men are affected, then that means there will be two to three players in every squad who are impacted in some way.
“It’s just common sense,” Albany-Ward added. “With so many people in the population affected it never made sense not take care of your players and your fans. It’s just a shame that it has taken them this long to get to this stage.”
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