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JOHN DELANEY continued to talk up the progress being made with sales of premium 10-year seats for the redeveloped Lansdowne Road yesterday, but the launch at Irishtown stadium of two incentive schemes aimed at drumming up additional business from within the “football family” appears to confirm that the continuing deterioration of the economic climate here is adding to the challenge of finding buyers.

The association’s chief executive, along with Andrew Hampel, his opposite number at the company doing the actual selling, ISG, remained bullish about the situation, insisting the original monthly sales targets are being met and even going as far at one stage as to insist that a higher than expected percentage of the 10,000 seats being marketed under the scheme will be sold by the time the stadium opens for business in the autumn of next year.