Sir, - As your correspondent Edmund Van Esbeck points out repeatedly, greed and money have become the driving force of modern international rugby. The IRFU increased the cost of terraced tickets for the Australian game from £10 to £12. Not surprisingly, the game was not sold out in advance and a newspaper advertisement indicated that tickets would be available at a caravan outside the ground.
Along with many other parents and children, I turned up with my son to discover that terraced tickets were not available at concessionary prices to schoolchildren. Inside the ground, we were treated to the ludicrous pre match spectacle of the Irish schoolboy team kicking sponsored balls into the crowd.
Maybe, in the long run, the IRFU wishes to exclude terraced supporters altogether, while paying lip service to the promotion of the game and concentrating on meeting the desires of the influential corporate hospitality market. - Yours, etc.,
Elm Park, Blackrock, Co Louth.