Is Lansdowne Road too big......(for Leinster)?

Stupido

RDS. Nice ground but a lot of temporary things about it.

20,000 seems to be about the limit without a re-build of the grandstand.

Longterm a possible move to Lansdowne might be on the cards, but is it too big for them? If they could increase the average crowd to 25,000 for magners, is the move worth it?

If opinion is no, what will happen to the RDS? Who is going to invest on the stadium if the ground is only on short term lease?

Look what is going on in Bath at the moment vis-a-vis stadium development.

Thoughts?

barnesd

The RDS has been taken on a long term lease. 20+ years.

Stupido

yes but who is going to pay for permanent stands and facilities development?

barnesd

How can they ever put permanent stands in? Leinster obviously will have to pay for any develpments though, which would be worth their while considering the length of the lease.

themont85

The RDS got a bit of a doing up last year and over the summer. I like it as a venue personally, could be far worse. And at 20k its a decent size for Leinster, with crowds averaging over 14,000 this year and growing, they will probably level out though in the next few years. Move the big HC games to Lansdowne like before and Leinster are sorted for the next 10 years imo.

EDIT: A ridiculous amount of threads about stadiums these last few days hasn't there!

barnesd

themont85 wrote: »

The RDS got a bit of a doing up last year and over the summer. I like it as a venue personally, could be far worse. And at 20k its a decent size for Leinster, with crowds averaging over 14,000 this year and growing, they will probably level out though in the next few years. Move the big HC games to Lansdowne like before and Leinster are sorted for the next 10 years imo.

Exactly. There's no really pressing need to change the RDS much, the only thing I'd complain about is there's not enough toilets but a bit of queuing won't kill you.

Maybe the biggest name in the HEC group along with Leinster v Munster, and possibly with a bit of morkeshing Leinster v Ulster to be moved to Lansdowne each season, and we're sorted.

randomname2005

barnesd wrote: »

Maybe the biggest name in the HEC group along with Leinster v Munster, and possibly with a bit of morkeshing Leinster v Ulster to be moved to Lansdowne each season, and we're sorted.

Would that meant that Leinster couldn't use Landsdown for any quarter/semi matches in the HEC?

ALH-06

Stupido wrote: »

Look what is going on in Bath at the moment vis-a-vis stadium development.

What's going on at Bath???

Crash

Presumably same loophole as before - the RDS would still be registered as our home ground, so Lansdowne could be used.

toomevara

ALH-06 wrote: »

What's going on at Bath???

Their stadium is an historic one, slap bang in the middle of the town (one of the most picturesque you'll see anywhere). It's way past its sell by date and not up to spec. It's too small, Bath could sell thousands more tickets per game than they currently do, and its too old, costing a fortune to maintain, for Heineken/GP rugby..the club have been trying desperately to get planning permission from the powers that be to redevelop but all requests have been turned down. Problem is, Bath is a hugely historic town and consequently under current planning laws and grading/listing systems....it's virtually impossible to develop anything there...

They're loath to move put of Bath as, much like Thomond Park for Munster, its their historic spiritual home...As it stands they'd be looking at a ground share at some atmosphere-free soccer stadium while a brand new stadium was built some distance form the town over a period of some years...desperately unsatisfactory for the club.

[Jackass]

Lansdowne road is the perfect size for Leinster...which is a bit of a joke to be honest!!! RDS is perfect size for every day league games etc., Lansdowne road is perfect size for big European games and derby games (would be nice to get about four 40,000+ attended games with Munster at home, Ulster at home, big HEC group game and a Quarter or Semi HEC if we are lucky enough to get it and at home.)

Also as a long term solution to Leinster (all be it around the time the 20 year lease runs out on RDS) it would probably (hopefully) be a good size to move into as a permanent home..who knows....

But the joke of it all is that Lansdowne Road was too small for any international rugby fixture 4 and a half years ago when this was being planned (and the growth of support for rugby in this country over the last few years has been massive), it used to be extremely difficult to get tickets for 6 nations games in Lansdowne, now I'm entering lotterys to get tickets for 6 nations games in Croke Park...soon, 30,000 of those tickets will be removed and it'll be back to a smaller groung - more or less one third of attendance knocked out of each game.

It's insane. It's a decent size for football, although it was interesting to note that even with the disinterest in the recent Georgia game in Croke Park and lack of atmosphere, 10,000 of the 60,000 who went wouldn't have been able to get through the gates in Lansdowne, however I was trying desperately (and failed) to flog 2 tickets to the game and got a good few texts off people wondering if I knew anyone looking for tickets (the block booking thing, you have to buy) - so where there's ample availabilty now for soccer at least - it'll be back to gold dust days of Lansdowne. Let's hope somebody is mates with relatives of a player or daughter of Taoisach or foreign ambasador so we might have a shout at getting in at some stage.

Also, imagine a Munster v Leinster semi this year? You could probably sell 150,000 tickets for that game.

Once Lansdowne is finished we should start concentrating on developing a national stadium... (the sad truth of it all) ...