Around the 65th minute mark at the Aviva Stadium, with the game still in the balance at 25-19 to Ireland, Romain Taofifénua won a turnover penalty for France.
Romain Ntamack found touch inside the Irish halfway line. The estimated 9-10,000 French fans in the Aviva Stadium began jumping up and down in unison and chanted a variation on the popular anthem adopted by several Top 14 clubs.
“Hey, qui ne saute pas n’est pas français!”
“Hey, who is not jumping is not French!”
As at times before, during or after, you could have closed your eyes and imagined being in the Stade de France.
Forty charter flights brought French fans to Dublin last weekend. The city was awash with French fans desperately seeking tickets. Corporate lunches for their fans were commonplace. Midi Olimpique estimate that only 9,000 or so of the 15,000 who travelled obtained tickets, and fans were being offered them by touts at €1,000 to €2,000.
Ticket touting is now illegal after the Sale of Tickets Act was brought into force by the then tánaiste and minister for enterprise, trade and employment, Leo Varadkar TD on July 31st, 2021.
Under the act, anyone who sells tickets for live music or sports events would face fines of up to €100,000 or up to two years in prison, in which case this needs to be investigated before and on the day of the Ireland-England game on March 18th.
Of the 52,000 tickets for last Saturday’s game, 10,000 went to 10-year ticket holders, 2,500 to the IRFU’s commercial programme, 850 to corporate boxes, 2,000 to hospitality and 4,700 to the visiting union, in this case the French Federation.
The remainder, 31,950 or so, went to the clubs.
Clearly therefore, if the French managed to double their official allocation, roughly 5,000 additional tickets fell into their hands via the clubs. One has some sympathy for clubs, who have to beg, borrow and raise funds just to manage their annual budget – anywhere from €250,000 to €500,000 – at a time of sharply increasing costs.
Selling tickets to hospitality at, say, €1,000 a pop, or whatever, is an invaluable source of income. But it does seem a shame that at a time when Ireland probably has its greatest ever team, lifelong club stalwarts, from mini rugby coaches up, are no longer attending Six Nations games in the Aviva Stadium.
Part of this is the prohibitive cost of tickets, circa €135 each, but then again this appears to be their market value. There’s also the cost of travelling to Dublin or, heaven help them, extortionately priced hotel rooms, especially on St Patrick’s weekend.
When it comes to gouging visitors for concerts or major sports events, Dublin hoteliers are right up there with Cardiff, London et al.
But one of the knock-on effects is that fewer supporters are coming from Connacht, Munster and Ulster, and that has diluted the passion of the home support.
We can’t have it every way of course. When a Green Army invades foreign fields, such as Twickenham for the Paddy’s Day Grand Slam coronation in 2018, we applaud their resourcefulness. The convivial mix of home and away fans is one of the Six Nations’ great features, and the French fans were magnificent.
They even stayed in greater numbers to applaud their players’ lap of honour. True, away fans bring more fervour. They are more invested, literally and figuratively. Irish supporters remained in their thousands to watch the England-France game on large screens in Murrayfield in 2015 and hence were there for the trophy presentation – superbly organised by the SRU – hours after the full-time whistle.
After the drawn third Test between the All Blacks and the Lions in Eden Park in 2017, the tourists’ Red Army stayed to serenade their team and applaud an epic series, but there was hardly a Kiwi in the ground when Kieran Read was presented with his 100th cap. Sad.
After full-time, the French team were also quicker to acknowledge their fans, whereas the Irish team hesitated, and in the absence of any music at a time when it was most needed, most of the home fans had headed for the pubs.
But if, fingers crossed, there is a trophy presentation to Sexton and the Irish players after the England game, you’d like to think the pub can wait!
Given tickets will soon be distributed for the English game, the IRFU could do worse than to write to all clubs pleading with them to ensure club members are given first option.
English supporters love Six Nations weekends in Dublin too, and they are the favourites of Dublin hotels, restaurateurs, bars and taxi drivers alike.
Yet Ireland could conceivably be seeking to seal a first title in Dublin or, better still, a final leg of a Grand Slam for the first time ever in Dublin. It would be a shame if all we could hear is Swing Low Sweet Chariot.
Of course, part of the problem is that the Aviva’s 52,000 capacity is simply too small, when set against Murrayfield (67,144), the Stadio Olimpico (73,261), the Principality Stadium (73,931), Twickenham (82,000) and the Stade de France (81,338). This is particularly true in the biennial years when Ireland host France and England.
At least people were engaged at the Aviva. There was far less traffic in the aisles going to and from the bars during the game. Then again, if last Saturday’s game couldn’t engage a crowd at the venue, nothing will.
But even though there’s no anthem to compare to La Marseillaise, which is a revolutionary song, the Irish crowd were heartily outsung. Several supporters feel they need another song in addition to The Fields, and a chant to rival “Allez Les Bleus”.
Sexton was so moved during Ireland’s Call he couldn’t sing. Afterwards, he explained that Brian O’Driscoll, Craig Doyle and Davey Irwin called into the squad last Monday to talk about the making of Shoulder to Shoulder, the brilliant documentary in which O’Driscoll delved into why Irish rugby has maintained a united team from both sides of the political and religious divide.
The thought occurred that maybe Ireland’s Call could be adopted during games as well given it embodies Irish rugby in representing all four provinces. The IRFU could even reproduce the words on the big screen.
Failing that, there’s the old Lansdowne Road favourite, Molly Malone. It’s not a Leinster song, it’s a Dublin song about cockles and mussels, and Six Nations games in the Aviva are a celebration of a disparate Irish crowd coming alive in the capital city.
Whatever happened to Molly?
