Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

I think some of the changes are societal, people aren’t as easy going as they were in the past, the atmosphere can be up and down no doubt but I’m not sure it’s all down to corporates, (although ticket prices are ridiculous at this stage) the Leinster LAR match last season had great atmosphere and I think it was because there were lots of family’s due to the pricing and the kids made a lot of noise which fed into other people.
it’s generally good for bigger Leinster games but can be hit and miss.

@Clo-Clo

The claim here is the "real fan" doesn't get ticket, yet all the tickets I get are via the clubs and they are provided to people who are working with the clubs. I know plenty more who do the exact same. So its the people volunteering for mini rugby etc who are getting tickets. Are they not the real fans?

Of course they are real fans. And are exactly the type of fan that Gerry is talking about getting priced out. When you look at the price of the tickets, it's difficult to argue against tbh.

Is it also fair to say you don't have the added expense of hotels etc.? Nothing the IRFU can do about that, obviously, but when the ticket prices are so prohibitive from the off, it all but rules it out for a lot of families not from Dublin.

This wont change, even if the priced the ticket at 10 euro people would complain

This is hyperbolic and evidently not true. The Munster and Leinster branches have both received praise recently for games in Croke Park and the Aviva, for pricing the tickets very favourably for the fans.

And whatever you opinion on Thornley is, I think it's particularly inaccurate and unfair to write this off as clickbait. You might not agree with him, but he's a credible journalist who has never gone down the social media / clickbait route.

I mean, he's making this argument at the same time that it's reported that the IRFU are looking set to increase ticket prices even further.

That's not clickbait.

Yeah there’s an element of “old man yelling at cloud” here and Gerry rolls out this shtick every Autumn and every 6N. I wouldn't call it clickbait because he really feels strongly about this, but at the same time it's a pointless exercise.

Like, giving everyone a seat instead of ramming them cheek to jowl on the terraces is objectively a good thing but not for the atmosphere. You can’t jump up and down and scream like you used to, you can’t call the ref a blind f**king c**t who forgot his f**king Wales jersey if you have a bunch of 10 year-old kids sitting in front of you. These aren’t bad developments, it just is what it is. Yeah people going in and out to the bar/jacks/food stall is a pain in the ass but what are you going to do? I bring my kids to nearly every match I go to and they're going to want a hot dog and they're going to want to go to the toilets, and I don't care if some grouchy auld fella has to stand up for four seconds to let them through.

The "real fans" argument is rearing its head, well that can get in the bin for a start.

Anyone who thinks corporate tickets is a new phenomenon is gravely mistaken btw. I went to my first Ireland match in 1991 and until Lansdowne was demolished, I alternated between getting terrace tickets through school/club or stand tickets through someone's dad/uncle who worked in "the bank", which was a generic term for any job that involved wearing a suit. The South Terrace may have been a heaving cauldron but the West Lower absolutely was not, and if you think differently, you weren't there.

So there's a fair amount of misty-eyed nostalgia here as well.

The tickets for the Ireland games are pretty steep, that's not really up for debate - but cutting those prices means something else has to be cut from the IRFU budget. Drop the ticket prices by an average of 20 quid, that's 4 million euro gone from the game over the course of the AIs alone. That's more pro players going abroad for a payday, it's fewer coaches going into schools, it's worse facilities, and on and on.

As long as we're filling the stadium, the price is right. If you want cheap tickets, the provinces are only dying to sell you a seat to some really good rugby for 30 quid and maybe a tenner for your kid.

I wonder when Gerry Thornley last paid for a ticket? There's a huge chunk of the best seats in the house of the Aviva given over to the press, does he mention that?

That's fine if that's the way the IRFU want to go, but then it jars when that's paired with "Team of us" slogans from their sponsors and could alienate fans long term. I'd argue it's going that way already.

Coupling this with 2 games on a Friday night, and Ireland A / XV games all being played in Dublin. There could be long-term consequences, alienating some fans.

There are legit criticisms and concerns here, however much some want to write it off as "clickbait" or .“old man yelling at cloud”. Or indeed "Im a terrible person seemingly for that."….

Here's the point.

I know plenty of people, (you might even call them real fans) who are season ticket holders for Munster who won't go to Ireland matches because of the cost of the tickets, and everything else involved. Those people are attending provincial games already.

But I think we can (mostly) agree separating fans from real fans is a nonsense argument.

Just as well I didn't make that argument then….

And the experience of Leinster would seem to indicate that filling the same stadium at lower ticket prices does not mean a better atmosphere.