Six nations 2006

Swansea Jack

Hi all, Has there been any decision on where Ireland are going to play their home games in 2006. Me and a few other were planning to come over for the Wales V Ireland but it wont be the same if the game isn't in Ireland.

Sangre

Still going to be ole Lansdowne road as far as i know. Nothing happening to the place yet or next year anyway I think.

Swansea Jack

Cheers mate, I thought they were going to start the redevelopment of Lansdowne Road in 2006

eirebhoy

Aye, Lansdowne redovelopment starts in 2006.

Swansea Jack

When in 2006??? after the 6 Nations or are Ireland playing elsewhere

Sangre

Mid 2006 so we should be ok for the six nations.
Who knows, we might even be in Croke park, now wouldn't that be something.

[Jackass]

Assuming the GAA wont open crowe park (don't get me started on that shower of ungratefull, medi-evil, ra loving gob$hites) where would we play our internationals during the redevelopment, donnybrook? lol

During 6 nations we couldn't use millenium stadium as was suggested for obvious reasons...probably a premiership club ground or something?

Wouldn't Old Trafford be sweet!

daveirl

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[Jackass]

Cause Wales will be using it during the Six Nations
We're bound to clash on home games with them 1 week + our "home" game with them would be away!
Wouldn't it be easier to stick with 1 venue we can be gaurenteed for the duration of the 6N, that isn't also a home ground for one of the competeing nations.

daveirl

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Swansea Jack

daveirl wrote:

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Have you seen the state on our pitch after one game I don't think it could take two

xern

Swansea Jack wrote:

Have you seen the state on our pitch after one game I don't think it could take two

That is very true.
That pitch has never been right since the stadium opened!
It kept folding up during the scrums in the england wales match, its a disgrace to be honest.

Nukem

Would love to see it in Croker but it may never happen - Welch people are class and we would be right at home but my god the drinking session Ireland V Wales headache already.

What are the options available? Someone said the phoenix park the other day and im for that *lol*

[Jackass]

I was suprised at how poor the pitch was in the millenium stadium against england..i've never seen it that bad! Ref had to keep moving scrums infield etc., scrums were a nightmare. I remember reading when it was announced Landsdowne was going to redeveloped that a few football teams in England had offerd to host Irish Qualifying matches in footy, but im sure there would be no problem for the Irish rugby side finding a home in the likes of Stadium of light or old trafford....
It's a disgrace the way the GAA wont even consider the matter (at least doing everything they can to stop it even being discussed at general assembly), when a world-class stadium sits unused at this time of the year......if the shoe was on the other foot, there would be no question that they could play in Landsdowne road....but i don't want to get into that whole rant!! :mad:

Trojan

If that went ahead, and Wales managed to beat us, but it was *our* home game, would that mean that it would break our streak of victories? (We haven't lost in Cardiff since 1983)

If we play in Croke Park, then the nearest spectator will sit ~15 metres from the touchline (iirc), yes?

daveirl

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An Tarbh

As far as I know, Ireland will play their home matces in Twickenham, and the English in Cardiff. So on two weekends there would be 2 matches at Twickenham, which can take it better than the Millennium Stadium pitch.

Hopefully it won't come to that and the GAA will open up Croke Park for the duration of the redevelopment.

Hydroquinone

Why could they not play the 6N then in Ravenhill? Is it too small?
All this talk of having home games in another country, why not have it up there, give the NI-ers a proper home game for once?

What about wherever the football matches are played, in NI?
Landesdowne is where ROI home football matches are played - what are they doing while the redevelopment is on?
Are they going to play in the NI stadium? Surely they've less of a call on that than the rugby team has, given that players from North and SOuth play in the rugby team.

[Jackass]

Grounds in Ulster would be too small unfortunatly, and wouldnt have the facilities to host a game of that magnitude to be honest. There's only two places in Ireland that could. If it was big enough, i would see absolutely no reason why we wouldnt play in Ulster, as Ravenhill was the home of Irish Rugby for years...The Irish football team will more than likely play in a Premiership stadium, Glasgow, or Cardiff as England did at the begining of the redevelopment of Wembly.

Gone West

i much prefer when they play in ireland, at least we have the home crowd then

[Jackass]

Well, like Dave said, if we do play in the UK, we will be allocated the "home team" ticket share, which for an international is about 75%/80% i think....so if we were to play in Millenium stadium for example, which is 80,000...we would get approx. 64,000 tickets. There'd be no probelm getting 64,000 irish supporters into any ground in the UK for a 6N match, but the real problem is with ground availability.

Swansea Jack

There are a lot of disadvantages to playing the fixtures out side of Ireland. The financial implications for one, where as there would be a group of us travelling over for the match if its not Ireland we wouldn't come over. and I think that goes for many Welsh fans

If it's in England again the atmosphere would be the same, home crowd and the "crac" wouldn't be there so lots of people wouldn't even travel to England for the match.

Although having said that I think the game should be promoted in countries where the game isn't so well developed .

It has to be played in Ireland otherwise I won't get away with going to Ireland when the match is elsewhere. :mad: