Six Nations Bonanza for clubs: Gerry Thornley on why the chances of a Irish rugby supporter getting their hands on a coveted Six Nations ticket has just increased considerably
Truly, Irish rugby will never have known anything like it. Easier access, greater comfort and incomparable facilities should all be worth the D4 set taking out their passports for the day. But first and foremost, the IRFU have the boon of an extra 33,000 or so tickets to dispense.
The prime beneficiaries, it appears, will be the much maligned clubs, whose allocation of 23,000 seated tickets at Lansdowne Road will be increased by 13,000 at Croke Park. Furthermore, the additional 13,000 are all seated tickets, in addition to their existing 10,500 terrace. This equates to a total increase from roughly 32,000 to 45,000. Quite a tranche of tickets.
"There is potentially a third more tickets available to the clubs via the branches," explains IRFU chief executive Philip Browne, who sees the increased possibility of ordinary rank-and-file club members benefiting chiefly from the increased capacity at Croke Park as "a positive".
Much to their annoyance, about 700 tickets had been taken away from the clubs in recent years, but, if only for a few years, this has been reimbursed handsomely. Nevertheless, this significant increase in their allocation still has to be shared out amongst not only the 48 senior clubs but almost another 200 junior clubs.
The branches have been canvassed as to whether they will want this increase, and the initial response to the union suggests they will all be snapped up.
"The distribution will be up to the branches and different formulas are applied by different branches," says Browne. "By and large, you have a divisional status, and then if you're a senior club of longer standing, you might be entitled to more."
There is a huge, untapped supporter base out there, unattached to clubs or branches, which the IRFU have not been able to reach heretofore, but any prospective supporters who thought the move to Croke Park would see thousands of tickets going on sale in the public domain, say through Ticketmaster, will be disappointed.
Browne's advice to them is simple: "Join a rugby club. At the end of the day, this is about rugby. Sure, it would be nice to be able to sell directly to the public for matches like this, but the fact of the matter is that if the demand is there from the rugby community we have to satisfy that demand and we make no apologies for that."
He admits that "the numbers are still shifting", but the basic outline of the planned distribution has been finalised.
As part of the amicable agreement reached between the GAA and the IRFU, the former gave its own 8,500 premium-seat ticket holders first option on those same tickets for the French and English games, and virtually all of them were taken up.
Also beneficiaries will be the visiting French and English unions, whose share will rise from the existing 4,800 they were receiving for Six Nations games at Lansdowne Road, to 7,000. In return, though, this means the IRFU will receive an increase of the same amount to 7,000 tickets for Ireland's games in the Stade de France and Twickenham next season.
Television will also be served by additional studios and camera positions, which, coupled with the IRFU's need to hold back tickets for health and safety reasons on the day, account for another 1,000 or so tickets.
As an aside, where the GAA require only a maximum of 70 seats, the IRFU's need to facilitate international media means that has to be increased to 200 (which is an increase of 60 on the existing press box in Lansdowne Road).
Visually, if nothing else, games at Croke Park should also look better, both to the naked eye and to the millions watching on screens all over the world.
The pitch dimensions are slightly different. A rugby pitch is 70 metres wide, whereas a Gaelic pitch is 90 metres, while a Gaelic pitch is 145 metres long and a rugby pitch can be up to 140 metres long if one allows for the maximum in-goal area of 22 metres at either end.
"There isn't much difference lengthwise, so that fits fine," says Martin Murphy, the IRFU's operations director, who is co-ordinating the temporary change of address. "A rugby pitch is narrower, but that's no major issue.
"The (advertising) signage will be slightly closer than it is at the moment, so the players will have the same impression of the pitch. It shouldn't cause any problems and the atmosphere will be the same. It's much closer than Murrayfield and Twickenham and Stade de France. They all have a border around the pitch."
Of course, there will be a heightened interest amongst Irish rugby supporters and sports fans in general amid a general desire to witness a day of history as much as a rugby match. And given the English game always attracts the most sizeable overseas demand as well as the greatest home interest, the same will be true of both games.
Therefore, in effect, the increase in capacity will merely be commensurate with the increase in demand. And, spoiled by GAA games at this magnificent stadium, not to mention the superior spectator facilities at so many stadia abroad compared to Lansdowne Road, these games become more attractive because, as Browne puts it, "because of seats. It now becomes more attractive for people to come along with children and have seats together."
The pluses from the IRFU point of view are manifold. "And the alternative was to relocate to another country," Browne reminds us.
Limitations on providing for the corporate sector were also extremely limited at Lansdowne Road.
"The premium-seat holders and the corporate-box holders are going to benefit from all of those facilities, which is very limited here," adds Browne, nodding towards the Lansdowne Road ground adjacent to the union's offices in 62 Lansdowne Road.
"We have about 1,000 people in tents on the back pitch and about another 400 people in boxes, and that is the limit of our ability to provide for the corporate sector. So, obviously, there is a completely different set-up in Croke Park.
"We also have a capacity for about 2,000 corporate hospitality places over and above the corporate boxes and the premium seats, which is about 600 more than we have at Lansdowne Road at the moment, so that's an advantage to us as we can leverage revenue on the back of that."
In addition, there is the improvement in facilities generally.
"They have a range of food outlets and bars right throughout the stadium," adds Murphy. "They've only introduced that this year and it's worked out very well for the GAA."
In Lansdowne Road, they have the popular Paddy Madigan's tent on the back pitch and a few outlets and bars, and even that is more than the old ground offered about 10 years ago, which was more or less nothing.
Indeed, those die-hard rugby fans yet to experience the comparative comforts of Croke Park will hardly believe how spoilt they're going to be, and most visiting fans ought to be in for a surprise as well.
The union's own surveys into Six Nations games at Lansdowne Road have shown that for the England match, up to 20,000 people might travel over. "The difficulty is you don't know whether they were travelling from England for the rugby international or for other reasons, but one can surmise that by and large they were travelling for the rugby match. So we know that for the English match the demand outstrips supply. Equally, for the French match we are always under pressure."
As an aside, according to the union's economic-impact study, the England match two years ago generated €51-52 million, of which roughly half came into the Irish economy from England.
"The mere fact that both unions have said they will take another 2,300 tickets is proof of that. In fact, the English said they would take 10,000, but we didn't want to do that. This is a great opportunity for Irish rugby. Why make it a great opportunity for English rugby?"
Premium tickets have been priced at €110, stand tickets are a uniform €80 (up from €75 at Lansdowne Road), terrace tickets are €30 and schoolboy/schoolgirl tickets are €10.
This compares to €99 and €72 for stand tickets at Stadio Flaminio in Rome, €110 to €73 in Stade de France, £65 to £70 (€96 to €104) in Twickenham, £45 to £60 (€67 to €89) in Murrayfield and a top price of £45 (€67) in Cardiff last year.
Tickets won't go on sale until the New Year, in part to reduce the time for possible counterfeiting and to reduce the chance of tickets being lost. However, there remains the lure of selling off tickets at significant profit to prospective English visitors.
"I would be very disappointed if they do that, because it's a fantastic opportunity for every club in the country to actually make sure their members are at a unique rugby occasion and unique sporting occasion. I hope they are not short-sighted enough to simply flog tickets on to the black market.
"And we will have measures in place in relation to the black market. Every ticket is traceable to a club and it is the responsibility of a club to ensure those tickets are used in a proper fashion."
Pressed on what those measures might be, Browne said, "The obvious measure would be refuse entry into the ground and the second thing is to punish the clubs who abuse the ticket allocation. Their allocation could be stopped."
The English RFU have, apparently, been giving the lead in this, according to Murphy, even down to ceasing some clubs' ticket allocations for Twickenham. "The RFU have, for three years now, been clamping down on the whole non-official ticket selling. They've taken a lot of measures to curb their operations. Any club that transgresses can be punished and they've also followed people from unofficial corporate hospitality and stopped them from entering the ground."
As it is, the logistics of running a match at Croke Park are much more challenging than at Lansdowne Road.
"We would have 1,400-1,500 people here on match day, whereas at Croke Park we'll have jointly over 2,500," says Murphy, who is co-ordinating everything about the switch from the IRFU's perspective, and this increase includes a much larger catering staff. The GAA have allowed the union personnel to witness the Croke Park operation during the summer.
"We've had people training during the matches there all summer, and I'm sure we were a pain in the neck for them. They let us have full insight into their operation."
Meanwhile, for this November's last three games at Lansdowne Road as we've come to know, love and despair of it, the union will sell tickets for the Australian game on their own, while they've linked tickets for the South African game with the final match at the venue against the Pacific Islands.
Because of this, and the heightened interest in what will be something of an emotional farewell to the old ground, the union are hopeful of full houses for all three.
All the while, the proposed redevelopment of Lansdowne Road is "bang on schedule", according to Browne. The date for the oral hearing with An Bord Pleanála, which includes about 33 lodged objections, has still to be finalised, but the IRFU had allowed for that delay and still estimate work will commence at the beginning of next year as scheduled: "As soon as we hear a positive decision we have to move in."
There is a 27-month building programme, on which basis Ireland's first match at Lansdowne Road would be in the autumn of 2009. The current agreement with the GAA is for one year, subject to the progress on Lansdowne Road. This means the IRFU have still to renegotiate with the GAA for Ireland's Six Nations games in 2008 and 2009, along with the autumn games of 2008.
The estimated cost remains at €365 million, of which the IRFU are contributing approximately €100 million, the Government €191 million and the FAI almost €70 million.
The union's profits on a reduced 50,000 capacity at a redeveloped Lansdowne will, nonetheless, be larger than in Croke Park, primarily because they won't have a rental to pay.
Even so, there is always a danger that Irish rugby, and especially the clubs, will become a tad spoiled by the comforts of Croke Park and especially the increased capacity and with it the larger allocation for the clubs.
For them, the next few years look like a brief boom.
Rugby fans in Croke Park
Where the tickets go
Stadium capacity: 83,000
Seated70,000
Existing GAA Premium seats
10,500
(including 2,000 box seats)
Additional GAA allocation
1,500
Hospitality packages
2,000
Visiting unions (reciprocal)
7,000
Existing 10-year tickets
5,000
Tickets held back for health and operational reasons
1,000
Media
200
Branches/Clubs
36,000
Schoolkids
2,600
Fixed allocations
5,500
(sponsors, VIPS, etc)
Terrace13,000
Branches/Clubs
10,700
Schoolkids
2,300
