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Gerry Thornley: Are the days of Veni, Vidi, Vici, Visa back as Irish fans prepare to march on Rome?

The Counter Ruck: It’s reckoned that over 5,000 Irish fans have purchased tickets for the match at the Stadio Olimpico

An Irish lineout at the Italy v Ireland Six Nations match at Stadio Flaminio in Rome for the final round of the 2007 Six Nations on St Patrick's Day. Ireland won the game 51-24 but lost out to France for the title on points difference. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill

Gerry Thornley's face
Gerry Thornley
Fri Feb 17 2023 - 16:45

Everyone wants Italy to do well so long as it’s not against them. So it was that when Ange Capuozzo went on his slaloming 50-metre run before setting up Edoardo Padovani for the Azzurri’s match-winning try on the final day in Cardiff last year, the cheering in the Aviva Stadium press room wasn’t confined to just Ian McKinley.

Part of Italy’s appeal is, well, Rome. Since Italy’s accession to an expanded Six Nations in 2000, tens of thousands of Irish supporters have made the biennial pilgrimage to the Eternal City, especially as Italy’s arrival coincided with the Celtic Tiger.

This will be Ireland’s 12th Championship game in Rome, and the 11th with supporters in attendance. For the first trek to Rome, on the opening day in February 2001, at least a third of the capacity 30,000 attendance at the charming Stadio Flaminio appeared to be clad to some degree in green.

The Green Army perhaps reached its peak in 2007, before the economic crash in 2008, when Ireland completed their Six Nations campaign on a carnival-like St Patrick’s Day.

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The Roman sun shone brilliantly and there were seas of green in the homely Flaminio due to an error in ticketing allocation by the Italian Federation, with Irish fans appearing to account for more than half the 24,973 attendance.

That was the title that got away. Ireland threw caution to the wind in beating Italy 51-24, Denis Hickie scoring two tries on his last Six Nations appearance, as did Girvan Dempsey. But in going for an eighth try Ireland coughed up a turnover and a converted Roland de Marigny try with the game’s last play.

This reduced France’s target to a 24-point rather than 31-point win in their ensuing game at home to Scotland, and a questionable late try by Duane Vermeulen off a lineout maul, when no amount of replays could show the ball, much less a grounding, gave them a 46-19 win and the title on points difference.

That was Ireland’s fourth Six Nations win in Rome, a run that would extend to six before Italy’s 22-15 victory at the Stadio Olimpico in 2013. Since then, Ireland have won their ensuing four visits to the Eternal City but, of course, it’s not all about the rugby.

A striking feature of both Dublin and Ciampino airports on these weekends is the higher proportion of women among the travelling hordes, certainly by comparison to Cardiff and Edinburgh in the same biennial itinerary. Back in those Celtic Tiger days especially, it was a case of Veni, Vidi, Vici, Visa.

And aside from the rugby and the shopping, there’s the food and the wine and the countless iconic sights – the Colosseum, Roman Forum, Vatican museums, the Sistine Chapel, Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, the list is endless. But then if you’re fortunate to travel to one of the world’s most beautiful cities every two years and have ticked off those boxes, you can simply wander, by day or by night, and take in its piazzas and its beauty, and perhaps stumble upon the old Jewish quarter on a sunny Sunday, take in the market and have a pizza and a beer.

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What adds to the attraction of this year’s meeting in the Stadio Olimpico is that it will be the first time Irish supporters have been permitted to attend a game in the Italian capital for four years, as the 2021 match was played behind closed doors due to the pandemic.

There are four flights daily from Dublin to Ciampino in winter, and Ryanair have put on three extra flights in each direction next weekend, so over the course of next Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning, about 2,700 passengers will travel from Dublin alone to Rome.

The IRFU no longer receive an official allocation from their Italian Federation counterparts, as tickets have to be bought from the FIR directly, due to new laws in Italy for sporting events. Data is collected on each ticket holder, who may then be asked to show identification on entry to the stadium and this must match the name on the ticket. (This would seem a good way of preventing tickets being sold on at above face value or to touts for Irish games, no?)

In any event, this enables the FIR to make a more accurate estimate as to how many Irish supporters have bought tickets for next Saturday’s round three game. They reckon that over 5,000 Irish fans have purchased tickets for the match, with sales around the 41,000 mark overall and thus the figure could rise to at least 45,000 come match day.

This is still slightly shy of the 49,720 crowd for Ireland’s last match there four years ago, but does mark a continuing increase since the pandemic. Covid restrictions (ie half-full grounds) were still in place when only 29,015 attended the first post-Covid Six Nations game against England last year, but next Saturday’s attendance is set to eclipse the 41,200 or so who attended last year’s game against Scotland and this year’s round one game against France.

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Interestingly, in light of the 10,000 visiting fans who attended the Aviva Stadium last Saturday, when 15,000 travelled over, it’s estimated that less than 2,000 French fans attended the round one game in Rome. This illustrates how popular both Dublin is for French rugby supporters and Rome is for Irish fans.

It’s also reckoned that about a third of the Italian supporters against France, and ditto next Saturday, are ‘new’ fans as such. The TV audience was also up by about a third to almost 600,000. Helped by the emergence of the thrilling Ange Capuozzo and last year’s wins over Wales and Australia, Kieran Crowley’s adventurous young side have captured, or recaptured, the hearts of some Italian fans.

So, given how Andy Farrell’s side have been playing, this looks like being one of the most entertaining matchups between the two for some time. And no better city for it to take place in either.