Toulouse flyers to stretch Perpignan

THE staging of the Heineken Cup final at Lansdowne Road today may seem to be a most bizarre decision by the ERC committee, but as recently as last Wednesday, when Celtic played Porto in Spain in the UEFA Cup final, we saw its parallel in another sport.

Unfortunately, the match between Perpignan and Toulouse is unlikely to evoke the same passion, especially among Irish rugby supporters and the French supporters are unlikely to travel to Europe's most expensive nation in sufficient numbers to fill the ground.

Played at the Stade de France, the match would surely have been a sell-out, with the financial benefits to the ERC sufficient to compensate for any losses the IRFU may have incurred due to shifting the match away from Dublin.