Just the ticket as Irish fans feel at Dome
Instead of having to watch the action on the giant screens in Federation Square or the city’s myriad of pubs, they will be locked inside this incredible, ultra modern 55,000 capacity stadium with the roof closed. The Australian Rugby Union, which along with the International Board did fans few favours with the exorbitant cost of tickets for many games, are now forced to acknowledge that the bank balances of Melburnians have taken a battering and that the event to miss may be the Ireland-France rugby confrontation.
Starting on Friday last with the International Rules match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (60,000), Australia v Ireland (55,000), Tuesday’s Melbourne Cup (140,000) and yesterday’s Oaks (60,000), these sports mad people are finding the price of World Cup quarter-final tickets a bridge too far. Of the four quarter-finals to be played at the weekend, the two in Melbourne have most tickets unsold. 9,500 were available yesterday for tomorrow’s clash of South Africa and New Zealand and 16,000 for France v Ireland on Sunday.
ARU John O’Neill has been urging Melburnians to dig deep yet again and hopes their absorption with the racing has caused them to forget the rugby: “With the Melbourne spring carnival, peoples minds haven’t focused on the quarter-finals. But I hope they get their minds around the fact that there are two sensational contests on this week-end.”
The problem for O’Neill and Shane Harmon, the marketing manager, is that many of these people are financially skint and done for socially after all the racing and partying - and they’re not much into rugby union in these parts anyway.
Only category A and B tickets at $295 Aussie dollars (approx 200) and $195 (about 120) are left. The scalpers will get their lecherous paws on a number of these and will expect to haul in up to $400 in some cases.
“There are some events comparable like the Australian Tennis Open and the best seats at Formula One grand prix”, accepted Harmon, “maybe with everything happening in Melbourne in the past few weeks, the dollar can only stretch so far.”
If I were Shane Harmon, I wouldn’t panic just yet. There has been a surprising absence of Irish supporters in Melbourne over the past few days. It appears they have left the city to visit friends and relations in nearby areas and to sample some of the amazing beaches around cities like Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. But they’ll be back in huge numbers over the week-end and the near certainty is that they will swoop for those tickets still on sale and give the Irish a sizeable advantage in crowd support in the Telstra Stadium come 6.30pm local time (7.30am Irish time) on Sunday.
The kind of fine, sunny weather we had already expected has arrived at last. Yesterday was a cracker in Melbourne and as it happened it was what the Irish call “a down day” which essentially means it’s a day off - except that Niall O’Donovan, as always, had a line-out session early in the day with the forwards and Declan Kidney worked with the backs.
After that, the players were free to do what they wished with the exception of Sunday’s 22 who were debarred from attending the Oaks race day at the Flemington Track, which is widely known for attracting Australia’s most glamorous and most spectacularly dressed ladies. A few of those outside the 22, however, had no qualms in that respect.
The composition of the starting XV has aroused much debate here, especially the preference for Victor Costello over Anthony Foley at number eight. It’s one about which I have the gravest reservations myself. While accepting that Costello is a far better player at 33 than he was in his twenties, his main gambit is taking up the ball at the base of scrum and ruck or charging in midfield, tactics well-known and easily read by the opposition. Foley is no slouch himself in that regard while his defensive qualities are without peer and I only hope his qualities won’t be too seriously missed.
O’Sullivan’s comment on Wednesday that he considers Foley “one of the best rugby brains in the back-row in the world,” rang a bell with many observers here and prompted The Australian to headline their piece “Ireland sacrifice brains for a shot of brawn.”
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