DESPITE THE hair-raising cost of last-minute flights and accommodation, rugby fans arrived in their droves into the Welsh capital ahead of what could be Ireland’s first Grand Slam in 61 years.
No price, it seems, is an obstacle when you can rely on a trusty credit card or an understanding bank manager.
“Eddie Hobbs would be proud of us with the way we’re cutting costs,” said Shane (26), who had just arrived with a group of four teachers kitted out in Munster jerseys into Cardiff’s central train station.
“We booked budget flights to London about six months ago, got the cheap train up for £40 and now we’re all piling into an apartment for three people.”
With airlines charging ludicrously high prices to fly into Cardiff, the first wave of Irish-reg camper vans began to arrive into the Welsh capital yesterday. Most are staying on the grounds of Llandaff rugby club, which has thrown open the doors of its clubhouse and bar to its Irish visitors.
“It’s the perfect way to fight the recession,” says Stephen Bradshaw of Celtic Campervans, whose company dispatched 16 vehicles for the weekend. “The phone hasn’t stopped ringing since the Scotland match with people looking for some form of alternative transport.”
Meanwhile, the only sign of a liquidity crisis was at Kitty Flynn’s bar on Mary Street – renamed the “Munster Bar” for the day by its Kerry-born manager – where pints were flowing even faster than expected. Officials have been taken aback at the numbers travelling over, which have swelled dramatically over the past 24 hours.
City authorities predict that anywhere between 5,000 and 10,000 fans will make it here for the game, while all accommodation is booked out for a 40-mile radius outside the capital.
One of the few animated talking points to rival the cost of travel and accommodation on the streets of Cardiff yesterday centred on Welsh manager Warren Gatland’s verbal jousting over the Irish team.
“He was totally out of order,” said Grey Murray from Dublin, sporting a Leinster jersey and settling into his first pint of the evening in O’Neill’s pub. “It’s not the rugby way. If anything it’s going to rile the players and make sure we’re up for it.”
The only topic largely absent from fans’ lips is whether Ireland will secure the Grand Slam that has eluded them for so many decades.
There’s a nervous expectation growing among the fans as the hours tick down that the Ireland team is on the verge of making rugby history – but few are willing to predict it will happen. “We’re all too scared to talk about it,” says Aidan Camplan (24), from Newcastlewest in Dublin. “We know we’re better than them; we just need to be able to deliver.”
For people like Tony Kennedy from Dublin, who was born a year after Ireland last managed the Grand Slam, the day is freighted with high emotion.
“I’m 60 and it would mean so much to see it happen,” he said. “My father was at the last game in 1948. What a day that was. And you know what, I think we can do it.”