IT’S THE truth that dare not speak its name, but the significance of Leinster’s final pool game tomorrow against Edinburgh at the RDS is not lost on management, players, fans or anyone else with a vested interest in the province’s wellbeing. In a sense, it’s almost unfair that so much appears to hinge on one game, and especially as that is not entirely of Leinster’s own making. But this is a monstrous match, not only season defining but potentially a landmark game too.
Qualification for the quarter-finals is seen as virtually imperative on a number of levels. Financially, the consequences of reaching or not reaching the last eight are well into six figures but arguably the ramifications on the pitch and in terms of projecting the Leinster brand in a positive light are even more important.
For example, aside from the potential financial and marketing spin-offs of reaching the semi-finals, final or even lifting the Heineken Cup, the difference between a home quarter-final, an away quarter-final or a pool exit can also be measured in six-figure sums.
Outside of Test rugby, there is no more lucrative fixture than a home quarter-final in the Heineken Cup, and sometimes an away quarter-final may not be far behind. Three and two seasons ago, when Leinster and Munster earned quarter-finals at home to Leicester and Perpignan respectively, the gate receipts alone were in the region of
€1 million after the 20 per cent reduction in costs.
Munster, it is believed, took away in the region of €650,000, with Leinster and Leicester earning €500,000 each and Perpignan €350,000. (To encourage teams to move home quarter-finals to bigger, “neutral” venues, they are offered a 65 per cent split of the gate receipts rather than 50 per cent.)
Toulouse have built the most impressive facilities of any club side in the world in large part on the back of four home quarter-finals, and they are obviously pretty judicious in how they count the receipts. Despite a 38,000 capacity at Le Stadium, the ground of the Toulouse football club, and selling their own allocation of 5,000 tickets at €30 each, Leinster reputedly only received €150,000 from their split from the quarter-final four seasons ago.
Nevertheless, Munster and Leinster could safely expect windfalls of at least €250,000 or €200,000 from hosting a quarter-final in gate receipts and corporate hospitality alone, not to mention a possible six-figure bonus from their respective sponsors, Toyota or Bank of Ireland, for reaching the last eight. The proceeds from an away quarter-final would depend on the capacity of the home team and whether they moved the game to a bigger venue, but Cardiff or Bath at the Millennium Stadium or Harlequins at Twickenham or Leicester at Welford Road all offer the possibility of, say, €200,000-€250,000 pay days.
Leinster have earned only two lucrative home quarter-finals, but what makes them different from all the rest is the way their support base has grown, especially in the Magners League. In Michael Cheika’s first season, 2005-06, Leinster had only just moved to the RDS and ostensibly for Heineken Cup games only. They sold 200 season tickets that year whereas for this season they have 9,700 season-ticket holders – easily the highest in the Magners League, where they also have the highest attendance of almost 16,000 per match.
In what has been a hugely successful marketing drive, they have had some coups along the way like winning the league last season. The RDS has been impressively renovated into an 18,000 capacity, and Leinster have secured a long-term lease there.
On the back of all that Leinster have been able to supplement the IRFU-funded salaries of around €150,000 to sign some front-line overseas names such as Rocky Elsom, CJ van der Linde and Isa Nacewa. Such luminaries didn’t come here purely for the scenery and coupled with cars, flights and accommodation, it wouldn’t be stretching the figures to suggest the outlay for these three alone is in excess of €1 million.
All of which, in turn, raises the stakes for Leinster this weekend, as a second successive failure to qualify from the pool stages would hardly justify such expenditure. Michael Cheika, although he has another year to go on his existing contract, would probably depart at the end of the season, and who knows what that would mean for his coaching ticket of Alan Gaffney, Kurt McQuilkin and Jonno Gibbes.
Felipe Contepomi, being courted by Toulon and Montpellier, Chris Whitaker and Stanley Wright are all in the final season of their current contracts, and Elsom also has the option of leaving at the end of this season.
The fallout from failing to qualify this weekend would more likely hasten their departures than delay them.
And such would be the criticisms coming Leinster’s way and collective angst should their interest in Europe end in the third week of January rather than be sustained until the second weekend in April that presumably their near-10,000 season ticket sales would not be replicated next season. Not in the current financial climate.
Winning the league would, in most team sports, deflect much in the way of criticism but it’s Leinster’s misfortune that the Magners League lives in the shadow of the Heineken Cup.
The other thing that makes Leinster so different? In a word? Munster. It is the standards they set, reaching four finals, winning two of them and now qualifying for the quarter-finals for the 11th year in succession, which puts Leinster under such a cloud if they themselves don’t at least make the quarter-finals.
