Good Friday debate continues

THE ANIMATED debate about the decision to stage the eagerly awaited Magners League clash of Munster and Leinster at Thomond Park on Good Friday, April 2, continued yesterday.

Jerry Flannery Snr, father of the Munster and Ireland hooker, and David Hickey, the Limerick representative on the Vintners Federation, contributed to a fiery debate as RTE Radio’s Liveline programme followed up on our story in yesterday’s Irish Examiner.

By law, Limerick’s pubs will be closed on Good Friday and not surprisingly their owners are extremely disappointed that a game capable of attracting thousands of thirsty fans into the city has been fixed for that day. Instead, they are advocating that it should instead have been fixed for the previous night and it is clearly a very sensible solution to the problem.

Leinster are due to play their Heineken Cup quarter-final against Clermont Auvergne on the Friday of the following week and such a move would have given them an extra day to get over any knocks sustained against Munster and to prepare even more thoroughly for what promises to be a really tough game against the crack French side.

Munster manager Shaun Payne expressed his understanding of the publicans’ grievance while pointing out that their hands were tied.

“If you look at it purely from a rugby perspective, there’s not much in it but there are a lot of issues to look at,” he acknowledged. “Obviously, we’re a team that’s particularly close to our supporters and have a great affinity with them so it would have been ideal to have it on the Saturday.

“But fortunately or unfortunately, whichever way you want to look at it, we are dictated to by Celtic Rugby who in turn are probably dictated to by television. If we were in a similar position to Leinster, we wouldn’t want a six day turnaround to the biggest ERC game of the season. I’m sure they would prefer a seven day turnaround as we would if we were in a similar situation. We’re lucky enough not to be playing until the Saturday.”