Over 70,000 tickets now sold for Leinster-Munster Croke Park clash

The rivals meet at GAA HQ on October 12th.

BIG DRAW: Hugo Keenan of Leinster is tackled by Craig Casey of Munster during the URC match at the Aviva Stadium. Picture: Sam Barnes/Sportsfile

There was a time there when the Leinster-Munster rivalry seemed to be ebbing. Not anymore, it seems, with over 70,000 tickets already sold for their URC clash at Croke Park later this month.

The provinces will meet at GAA HQ on October 12th. It will be the first time they have locked horns at the ground since the famous and seminal Heineken Cup semi-final in 2009 when Leinster relieved their rivals of the title before claiming their first in an Edinburgh decider.

The Dublin-based club is playing the majority of its games at the Aviva Stadium this season while their RDS home undergoes redevelopment, but with the option to move some of the more attractive games to Croke Park which caters for an extra 20,000 bums on seats.

All sections of the GAA venue will be open next Saturday week, including Hill 16. It will make for the biggest attendance for an Irish club game since that world record crowd of 82,208 took in their meeting 15 years ago.

Leo Cullen’s side have played there more recently of course, just last May when another 82,000 – a Champions Cup competition record – watched their 20-17 semi-final defeat of Northampton Saints.

Leinster-Munster meetings have drawn varying numbers in recent years. Normally a crowd-puller, it came in just shy of 50,000 when they met in the Aviva last November, but there have been numbers in the mid-twenties and low-thirties since the pandemic too.