Whelan: the crowd shouts ‘Munster’ not ‘Thomond Park’

HE WAS a hard and uncompromising hooker in his playing days, and Pat Whelan was brooking no argument yesterday on the merits of selling the naming rights of Thomond Park.

“What really matters to the players are the 80 minutes on the pitch”, the Thomond Park redevelopment chairman declared. “We’re preserving 12,000 who stood in Thomond Park and the other 800 or so who sat in the stand. They created the atmosphere which is what counted for the players. Now we’re giving them two stands — we’ll have another 15,000 all shouting ‘Munster, Munster, Munster’.

“The fans don’t shout ‘Thomond Park’. They shout ‘Munster’. You ask the players. That’s what wins matches. During the matches, that’s what counts. Everything else is secondary — it matters but not on the same basis. You’re looking at a different situation. It matters in terms of teams being afraid to come to Limerick but they’re still coming to Limerick. So I think after a matter of bedding in, it will be accepted.”