Official attendance for AIl final

kevin99

What was the attendance at Sunday's AIL final between Old Belvedere and Cork Consitution at Donnybrook, Dublin?
I missed the game as I was out of the country.
What are the odds on the AIL being dissolved over the next five years?
Interesting article by Tony Ward in today's Indo about the state of club rugby.

buck65

It looked fairly full. Thought it was a good win eben though at half time it really looked like Con's game for the taking but in fairness to OB they really upped the intensity levels. Hurley's missed penalty would have tied the game but I felt Con didn't deserve anything from the game as they seemed far too complacent at times.
Hope the AIL keeps going. The amount of Munster players on show was good to see but I think this is all going to change. Not that they played like pros though! apart from O Mahony.

TheHighRoad

buck65 wrote: »

Hope the AIL keeps going. The amount of Munster players on show was good to see but I think this is all going to change. Not that they played like pros though! apart from O Mahony.

Stephen Archer, Fogarty, Ian Nagle, Billy Holand, Peter O'Mahony, Deasy all played and are all pro players. Possibly Zebo as well if he signed a full contract? When you look at the two teams its incredible Belvo won, they were basically playing a team that contained all of Munster's best young players as well as containing a player who was Munster's first choice hooker not so long ago!

Amazotheamazing

TheHighRoad wrote: »

Stephen Archer, Fogarty, Ian Nagle, Billy Holand, Peter O'Mahony, Deasy all played and are all pro players. Possibly Zebo as well if he signed a full contract? When you look at the two teams its incredible Belvo won, they were basically playing a team that contained all of Munster's best young players as well as containing a player who was Munster's first choice hooker not so long ago!

Fogs went off early enough.

The Belvedere team has plenty of old pros and Leinster Academy players too, afaik. Riordan, Dunne, Keogh, Keane, Auva'a, Maguire, Marshall are all still pro or ex pro's.

RAKM

Have to say I am disappointed to see the play offs finishing. There could be a lot of meaningless matches shortly after xmas. When they first came along in England it took a bit of getting used to but I quickly adjusted. The ML have it right IMO. Give the top team home advantage in the semi and final. That is a good prize for finishing top in return for keeping interest until the end for a few more teams.

hardCopy

RAKM wrote: »

Have to say I am disappointed to see the play offs finishing. There could be a lot of meaningless matches shortly after xmas. When they first came along in England it took a bit of getting used to but I quickly adjusted. The ML have it right IMO. Give the top team home advantage in the semi and final. That is a good prize for finishing top in return for keeping interest until the end for a few more teams.

Apart from the problem of meaningless matches, I think we'll lose out badly on the big finish to the season. The playoffs are often the only matches in the season that generate a decent amount of publicity and interest.

phog

I thought the game was scheduled for Athlone? I only saw a few minutes of the game but I thought the field was one of the worst they could have found for the final, there was more sand than grass on it.

ormond lad

phog wrote: »

I thought the game was scheduled for Athlone? I only saw a few minutes of the game but I thought the field was one of the worst they could have found for the final, there was more sand than grass on it.

dont think dubarry park or anywhere else were mentioned as a venue for the final by the press before donnybrook was announced.
the main pitch in donnybrook always feels like concrete by mid march every year.
they could cut the amount of games played on it by 30% and it would still be an awful surface to play on

TheHighRoad

Amazotheamazing wrote: »

Fogs went off early enough.

The Belvedere team has plenty of old pros and Leinster Academy players too, afaik. Riordan, Dunne, Keogh, Keane, Auva'a, Maguire, Marshall are all still pro or ex pro's.

Oh I wasn't referring to former players and academy but if I did its even more extraordinary considering 13 players who played that day for Cork Con were either current, former or academy Munster players!

delta_bravo

Donnybrook has 6000 capacity. It didn't seem to be full at all on the telly anyway.

Last year the final was in Dubarry Park which has a capacity of 10,000. I don't think that was full either, around the 7000-8000 mark I think.

buck65

Yeah Con were very disappointing and one dimensional. Ivan Dineen was anonymous as was Nagle barring a fine catch. Archer looked good in the loose, Zebo for me is a headless chicken and needs to pick his lines but does seem to pass defenders.
O Mahony played well when he came on but Belvedere were so much better in attack. I still feel that Con were complacent but the 2 tries rocked them. Con would probably win this game tomorrow but fair play to Belvedere they treated it like a cup final and tried to play running rugby, Con had no response in the 2nd half.