Leinster to hold ticket draw for match at the Stoop

HEINEKEN CUP:LEINSTER WILL hold a lottery for their season ticket holders after Harlequins confirmed that they will not be moving the Heineken Cup quarter-final between the teams to Twickenham.

Instead Harlequins have elected to play the match in their traditional home ground, the Stoop, which has a capacity of 12,638 on Easter Sunday, April 12th at 3.30pm.

The decision has disappointed Leinster who were hoping to draw upon a sizeable support for the match in terms of those travelling from Ireland and supporters based in England. The Irish province played a pool match against Wasps at Twickenham last month and estimated in the region of 6,000 supporters made the journey to London.

Chief executive of the Leinster Branch, Mick Dawson, confirmed their allocation – the away team gets 25 per cent of the tickets under ERC regulations – would be “just under 3,000 tickets”. He added: “It’s disappointing from a tournament perspective, the match would have guaranteed a big attendance if it had been moved to Twickenham.

“We are also disappointed on behalf of the Irish people in London who would have come out to support us and that is probably one of the reasons why they [Harlequins] didn’t change the venue. We will be holding a lottery for our season ticket holders, of which there are almost 10,000, and there will be no public sale.”

Dawson accepted Harlequins had made the decision for rugby reasons, pointing out there would have been pressure from coaches and players to play the match at the Stoop. Every successful applicant in the Leinster lottery would be entitled to buy a single ticket, in one of the following price categories: €49.50, €42.95 or €36.50.

Applications open tomorrow and will close tomorrow week. Details can be found on the Leinster rugby website (www.leinsterrugby.ie).

Dawson’s counterpart at the London club, Mark Evans, outlined Harlequins’ reasons behind not switching the quarter-final to Twickenham, especially after the team had attracted a crowd of 50,000 for a Guinness Premiership match against Leicester in December at English rugby headquarters. “This was a very finely balanced decision,” said Evans. “We will be giving up a significant amount of revenue by not transferring the game to the national stadium – a mere 400 yards away. In the current economic climate there was a good deal of pressure to relocate, particularly given the success of the ‘Big Game’ against Leicester in December.

“Even more importantly, we know that many ’Quins fans will not be able to secure a ticket given that our allocation of 9,150 [the home side’s ticket allocation for the match] is lower than our average attendance.

“Nevertheless, we felt the majority of our core support wanted to remain at our traditional ground.

“Although the playing advantage linked to staying at the Stoop may be relatively small, so is the margin between success and failure at this level,” he said.

In a bid to generate additional revenue from ticket sales, Evans admitted the prices for this particular match would be increased and that a number of seats would be reclassified.

He was also quick to confirm that no tickets would go on general sale, thereby thwarting any Leinster fans hoping to take a ticket against the head. Harlequins announced that the new price structure for the match was as follows: Gold circle (€56), Club (€45), Touchline (£35) and Jester (€39).

The tickets will be offered in strict order to debenture holders, sponsors, season ticket holders (including box holders), members, partner rugby clubs and previous buyers of Harlequins match-day tickets.

Other than debenture holders, who will be given the opportunity to purchase one extra ticket, all other categories will be offered single tickets.