McCall lands coaching job at Saracens

RUGBY/MANAGERIAL MOVES, LEINSTER TICKETS AND AIL FINALS:FORMER IRISH centre and Ulster coach Mark McCall has been appointed first-team coach at Guinness Premiership club Saracens following the departure of Eddie Jones.

McCall, whose last coaching job at Castres Olympique teamed him up with former Irish secondrow and current Ulster forwards coach Jeremy Davidson, will work alongside new director of rugby South Africa’s Brendan Venter. Both appointments begin from the start of next season.

The 41-year-old resigned as Ulster coach in November 2007 following a spiralling decline in the fortunes of the province. Current Australian coach Matt Williams subsequently took over the Ulster position in early 2008.

McCall and Venter, however, have a building job to do as Saracens are currently sitting ninth in the Premiership table, fourth from the bottom and will probably not be automatic Heineken Cup qualifiers next season.

“I am really excited about joining a club like Saracens and I can’t wait to start work,” said McCall. “Brendan is a strong character who knows exactly what he wants, and that is to be challenging for the Premiership title next season.”

Venter, who played 17 times for the Springboks in the 1990s and also coached at London Irish, is a qualified medical doctor and, like McCall, also operated in the centre as a player. “Mark has a great understanding of the game and a wonderful ability to get the best out of players. He is also a natural competitor and that is exactly what we will need to be successful,” said Venter.

Meanwhile, Leinster’s declaration they expect there will be no tickets available for sale to the general public for their Heineken Cup semi-final against Munster at Croke Park was illustrated on eBay yesterday.

The bidding website, where almost anything can be bought and sold, was looking for more than four times the face value, or greater than €340 for a pair of €40 tickets for the all-Irish meeting. That €340 amount had already been offered for the two Davin Stand (former Canal End) tickets with the Galway seller only interested in offers of sums greater than that amount.

Following last week’s confused beginning to the official sales procedure through the ticket agency Ticketmaster, in which passwords to buy multiple tickets were issued, Leinster reopened the process yesterday at noon and reported a brisk take-up by season ticket-holders.

The branch, however, will not know for a few days whether all 23,000 tickets have been sold to the season ticket-holders. The family tickets (for which there are various packages) went on sale last Friday and the remainder were available from yesterday. The other 7,000 tickets of the 30,000 allocation went to schools, branches, clubs, squad members and sponsors.

“We expect that unfortunately there probably won’t be any tickets left to go on sale to the general public,” said a Leinster spokesman. “We can’t do anything about that. There has been a huge uptake and we have to offer tickets first to the fans that have been loyal to the team throughout by buying the season tickets. There is no other way to do it.”

Leinster also stressed that there should be no confusion over last week’s cancelled purchases and the new tickets. Last week on Leinster and Munster rugby website forums warnings were being posted to alert fans to tickets that went on sale on eBay.

They alerted fans to the possibility, however slim, that people who may have bought some of the cancelled tickets on eBay might turn up on May 2nd expecting entrance to the match.

Leinster has reiterated that this could not happen as none of the cancelled tickets were sent out to purchasers. All that fans received was a printout document similar to that sent to an email address after booking an airline flight. The printout is not valid for entry.

“No tickets were actually posted out last week,” said the Leinster spokesman. “The printouts will not gain entry and that was made clear by us. The system can also track the tickets down to the actual section in the ground and the seat in that section, so there should be no confusion over the matter.”

The branch has also explained that the theory (however badly expressed) behind their dire threats to anyone wearing red in the Leinster seats was meant to encourage Leinster fans to support their team, not frighten them. What appeared to be a draconian sanction of loss of international tickets for the club that was allocated the errant seat was designed to encourage fans to get behind the team following a perceived growing discontent among supporters that they may be letting the team down.