WHEN rugby-mad Nick Warburton left his beloved Wales for Oxford, he knew catching home games would be a challenge.

With Newport Gwent Dragons a 200-mile round trip away Mr Warburton found himself missing kick-offs because of M4 traffic and late-running business meetings.

But the 38-year-old, from Murcott, should now never miss another try – because he has opened a branch of his company just yards from the team’s Newport ground.

Mr Warburton, who has clocked up 10,000 miles in four years watching the Dragons, said enough was enough – and his business partner said it was for the “sake of office sanity”.

He said: “I would be all set up to leave for the Friday night games and then something gets in the way. A meeting, a phone call, some urgent emails – anything that meant hitting the rush hour traffic all the way to Wales.

“Of course, our customer will always come first, but I would get so frustrated. Then my fellow director hit on a novel solution.”

David Dunsmore offered Mr Warburton the chance to set up a branch of their recruitment consultancy, Completely Care, just a mile away from the Rodney Parade ground.

Mr Dunsmore said: “You could tell when the Dragons had a Friday home game.

“Nick would spend the afternoon getting agitated, checking the traffic reports and generally flapping around.

“He tried working from our Bridgend branch – some 30 miles to the west of Newport – on match days, but Friday-night traffic along that stretch of the M4 meant it was the same journey time as from Oxford.

“For the sake of office sanity, we started to look into the business case for opening a third branch as near to the ground as we could.

“Luckily for us, there was one.”

Mr Warburton, a married father-of-four, currently works at the firm’s office in Elms Court, Botley Road.

He added: “Whoever said you can’t mix business with pleasure was obviously not a Dragons fan.

“It’s a sound business decision wrapped up as a birthday present and there’s nothing sweeter.”

The office opened at the end of August, in plenty of time for the Dragons’ first home match this Sunday against Glasgow Warriors in the Magners League.