Lansdowne Road redevelopment Oral hearing: Johnny Wattersondrops in to get a flavour of the debate on the new Lansdowne Road.

A juggernaut pulled into the Gresham Hotel this week. The air breaks hissed. Its great frame creaked and when it settled among the family saloons with their booster seats, it cast a large shadow. The sound was that of, well, inevitability. Of powerful against meek. It was the sound of the IRFU doing their homework, doing what they do well. Efficient, professional and unafraid to spend for the best results, they unleashed a succession of masters degrees, doctorates and tech-heads who declared previous global work experiences at such sites as the World Trade Centre, Wembley and the Millennium Stadium.

The oral hearing into the redevelopment of Lansdowne Road was a plucky step-up in weight division for a reasonable and determined but ill-resourced band of residents against a venerable organisation characterised by prudence, tough business acumen and, of course, financial clout. This week the IRFU left nothing to chance, it's capable rotweiler, planning consultant Tom Phillips, snapping at the heels of just about everything thrown his way.

In the middle of it all was the inspector from An Bord Pleanála, whose report will influence what decisions are made and whether that body should agree with Dublin City Council (DCC), whose view is that the Lansdowne redevelopment plan should proceed as a 50,000-seat international standard stadium. In that they were unwaveringly clear.

Still, the legion of specialists moved in to the Gresham Hotel tooled-up with information because this is what this week was about. It was an information gathering exercise, a chance for the third party, the residents and the applicants, Lansdowne Road Stadium Development Company (LRSDC), to give their views and ultimately influence the inspector's report. It was a corporation against a cottage industry.

Those residents on the boundary in O'Connell Gardens at the north end of Lansdowne Road did not want the footprint of the new stadium to swing around clockwise by 10 degrees and take what they contend is a giant step towards their houses. They did not want the sunlight compromised or the noise increased, or their size diminished in the shadow of the union's grand design.

Suitably financed and laden with studies, statistics and computer generated models, almost to a man from the UK, they delivered quite a payload. Regional British and Scottish accents informed the small gathering of residents how the new Lansdowne Road would improve their lives. The noise expert told them how the stadium would contain the sound. He then went on to prove it. The wildlife man spoke of clearing trees and flora around the river Dodder and explained that it would be done when the bats that populate the area are in hibernation. A sort of habitat makeover while they were on holidays.

The inspector was assured that instead of shopping trolleys and anti-social behaviour along the Dodder, the only squabbles would be the coots and moorhens fighting over primary locations in their new "riparian corridor". The wind expert showed slides of graphs and colour-coded simulation models, which proved beyond reasonable doubt, and certainly beyond the comprehension of most in the room, that in the new era the residents of O'Connell Gardens and Havelock Square could cheerily read a broadsheet newspaper in their back garden during the summer months.

There was one planning consultant and a gathering of legal knowledge on the side of the residents to refute the mountain of expert conclusions from the 20 hired guns. One against 20 and an inspector listening to nothing other than the information and the reasoning.

"I have a Phd in light," offered Paul Littlefair before launching into detailed theories of diffusion, refraction and reflection. Mr Phillips said that Dublin "envisages itself as a key city on the world stage" and offered that Dublin could no longer have "a third-rate stadium in a first rate city".

The inspector was then shown an "assessment matrix" and in loving terms told of the engineering concept of the main "curvilinear" roof. He was asked to buy into the decision that the other four sites on offer at the Ringsend Glass Bottle company (sold recently for €411 million), Newlands Cross, Siloque and Abbotstown were unsuitable with Dublin City Council, presumably representing the interests of the citizens too, agreeing with practically everything of import that the experts uttered.

"I think there have been a lot of very articulate presentations by our consultants and a lot of articulate presentations by some of the objectors," said IRFU chief executive Philip Browne. "It's a very fair hearing and I think all the issues have been put out on the table and they're getting a good airing, a good hearing.

"We had always anticipated that if we got an appeal hearing towards the end of 2006, we would be more or less on schedule. So we're comfortable. I think people will have heard that over the course of the week we have made significant changes to stadium design to try and accommodate issues that have been raised by people of the locality and now I don't think there is much that can be changed. But at the end of the day that's for An Bord Pleanála."

The residents spoke of "a glorified conference centre" and that the union wanted to "annex" the Dodder walkway, a small strip of land near the stadium.

Green Party TD and local resident John Gormley told the hearing that the city development plan would be "fatally prejudiced", while O'Connell Gardens resident Sophia Wallace wanted to know if a computer generated picture of the large globular structure at the wall of her back garden, which looked like a video grab from a scene of sci-fi movie Independence Day, was actually how it was going to be.

"On Wednesday with the applicants' presentations, it was unbelievable," said Ms Wallace, adding, "There were inaccuracies, selective and misleading information." The applicants, naturally, countered those assertions and perhaps understanding the emotive nature of some of the submissions and the passionate belief of some of the residents that their way of life could be irreparably changed, took a relaxed view of their professionalism and veracity being occasionally trashed. But Ms Wallace was undeterred.

"As part of my submission one of the points I made was that for the last three years I have fought against this as PAYE worker and I have made it known to politicians and the applicants that I couldn't fund expertise. I have personally tried to answer technical questions for myself, which has been a tough, tough, very difficult road," she said.

And dipping in for a few days, that is how it appeared. The professionals on both sides were impressive but the residents were outnumbered, outspecialised, outorganised and outfinanced. That was no surprise, nor any reflection on either side, just the reality and no interest whatsoever to the final report of the inspector or the decision of An Bord Pleanála.

But while the local resistance to the union dream was doughty and at times idiosyncratic, the promise of a judicial review if the decision to build is carried, hangs over the future. They simply don't want 50, 60, 80 lorries a day driving past their homes, whatever the reason.

The resident who promised such an action made it clear that it was not a threat but an option. What the union do not want is a long, drawn-out legal dispute. But this week they had strength in numbers around the ball, rarely kicked to touch and executed well. For Irish rugby, that's a reasonable first-half.