Timely wake-up call for IRFU and players

ON RUGBY:A little humility is no harm. Saturday ought to have provided coaches, players, media and supporters alike
with some of that, writes GERRY THORNLEY

THERE HAVE been a few too many for comfort in 2010 but perhaps last Saturday may yet prove to be the reality check to end all reality checks, for management, players, union and the rest of us alike. If not, then, quite simply, it’s goodbye to the good times and all that.

And lesson number one is clear enough – don’t take the public for granted, for although the vast majority rightly retain faith in this group of management and players, rugby is not immune from the depressing realities of Ireland’s economy. The IRFU have taken the rap for their over-priced and ill-conceived ticketing strategy, but they could also have done more to redeem last Saturday.

To rigidly adhere to their double-match package only right up until kick-off on Saturday, ie demanding €150 per double ticket for the South African and Samoan matches, was head-in-the-sand stuff. If people have already paid the full whack so what? There’s eminently worse examples out there of people having been over-charged for more expensive items than tickets.

Although schools’ tickets are €20 for next Saturday’s game against Samoa, regardless of the same concern, the IRFU could do worse than give away 15,000 tickets to charities and schools alike for that match.

But take the example of one supporter who bought tickets for himself and his wife to last Saturday’s game (and thus to the Samoan game) at a total coast of €392. Having made enquiries as to whether he could bring his six-month-old son, he was advised by the IRFU a ticket at full value would be required, even though the boy wouldn’t be taking up the seat as he’d be sitting on his parents’ knees! By contrast, Leinster (who have sold over 28,000 tickets for the Clermont game) issue complimentary tickets to under-twos who do not require a seat.

Alas, the auguries are not encouraging for next Saturday either. Aside from the mutinous mood among the supporters and last Saturday’s damp squib, the Samoa match (kick-off 2.30pm) clashes with a full All-Ireland League (kick-off 2.30pm) and junior club programme, as well as Wales-South Africa (kick-off 2.30pm) and England-Australia (kick-off 2.30pm) matches – which utterly beggars belief.

There’s also the probability there is too much international rugby, and that the autumn Tests have lost some of their lustre. There were, after all, vast swathes of empty seats at the Millennium Stadium on Saturday when the visit of Australia looked to draw considerably less than the official attendance of exactly 50,000.

The IRFU’s ticket strategy is still worth comparing and contrasting with the Scottish RFU’s for their game against the All Blacks. Adult tickets range from £45 (€52.50) to £25 (€29) and £20 (€23.50), and under-18s from £22.50 (€26.50) to £12.50 (€14.50) and £10 (€11.50). By contrast, the IRFU are demanding €190 per adult for the New Zealand/Argentina package, and €75 per schoolboy ticket.

The Aviva Stadium is a wonderful venue for most people, and an iconic structure, but it’s had a terrible start. Appalling safety issues at the Leinster-Munster match have been compounded by seats with obscured views, seats which are drier than others on days such as last Saturday, awful queuing for toilets and over-priced food and drink outlets alike (witness the near deserted seats for the start of the second half), and yet there’s no tiered ticketing strategy.

And sport has “value” issues for live attendances which are not immune from economic realities even before the recession. The IRFU, if they thought it through, expected supporters from all over Ireland who required two tickets for the home November Tests to pay an aggregate of €680. For that money they could buy themselves a plasma screen, a few cases or kegs of beer, invite over friends and family and probably still have some change left over.

Ronan O’Gara took a typically worldly view on the need for better support from the team’s 16th man, but last Saturday should be a wake-up call for the players as well. They need to help in the marketing and selling of the game a bit harder henceforth, and not only when it’s an earner for one of their individual or collective sponsors, while perhaps treating the media more as their conduit with the public.

As it is, one can be sure the IRFU – despite recently admitting the players were the lifeblood of the game – will use the anticipated loss of €2 million alone in lost gate receipts between the first two games as a further argument for tightening the purse strings when it comes to the next raft of post-World Cup contracts.

All in all, it was not another good day at the office for Declan Kidney and his coaching ticket either, or the on-field leaders. The game plan looked, at best, muddled, with perhaps the players becoming too influenced by those of us in the media to play a riskier, high-tempo game.

As Matt Williams outlined in these pages on Saturday, one of the Wallabies’ key strategies in beating the Boks was simply not to kick the ball off the pitch. For Ireland to go into this game with such a poor kick-chase strategy and to concede 15 lineouts, was therefore somewhat remiss.

Counter-attacking has never been a virtue of Irish rugby but as the one and only botched attempt between, of all people, Tommy Bowe and Luke Fitzgerald illustrated, this team’s counter-attacking game remains limited, which is curious given how Alan Gaffney helped to develop Leinster’s.

With Rob Kearney ruled out this week, it’s disappointing Geordan Murphy hasn’t been added to the squad. One presumes Fitzgerald or Keith Earls will play at fullback now, and the other at outside centre.

With a view to resting Brian O’Driscoll and other frontliners a week before the All Blacks game, there is scope to make nine or 10 changes by also bringing in Seán Cronin, Tom Court, Devin Toner, John Muldoon, Seán O’Brien, Denis Leamy, Peter Stringer, O’Gara, Andrew Trimble and Paddy Wallace.

Perhaps Irish rugby had become a little too used to the good times. If even Roger Federer can publicly admit he and “his team” became a little spoiled during his five years or so of dominating men’s tennis, then Irish rugby en bloc cannot be immune from this either. A little humility is no harm. Saturday ought to have provided coaches, players, media and supporters alike with some of that. If so, it might yet even prove beneficial in a seminal kind of way.