"Bienvenue à Dublin!" say the signs advertising today's Heineken European Cup final. But on the streets of Dublin yesterday, there were precious few French fans to welcome to the capital.
Despite the sponsor's attempts to generate some hype over the final, there has been no hiding the muted atmosphere leading up to the first European rugby final to be held in Ireland.
"This place would be usually packed before the Five Nations," said Mr Damien Ryan, assistant manager in Doheny & Nesbitt's of Baggot Street. "But we haven't seen any French fans so far. Hopefully it will fill up with Irish fans tomorrow."
It was the same story for other pubs around the city centre yesterday afternoon as idle bar managers searched in vain for throngs of beer-swilling rugby supporters.
Organisers of the all-French final expect a crowd of up to 30,000, with many tickets sold in recent days through promotions or special offers.
At least 5,000 French fans from Perpignan and Toulouse are expected to make the journey on 21 charter flights from the south of France. Mr Diarmuid Murphy, a spokesman for the organisers of the event, ERC, admitted the match had been "one hell of a hard sell" but said interest was finally beginning to pick up. "We had the double whammy of the Irish teams getting knocked out of the competition, having got so far. They went into a kind of mourning afterwards, so it's been hard to get them interested. Thankfully things have been picking up lately," he said.
"Then we had two French teams in the final, but the French don't travel. The English, Welsh, Scots and Irish travel, but the French don't." Whatever about the Irish interest in the match, there will be a huge TV audience as it will be beamed live around the world to countries such as Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
In an ironic twist to the game, the Royal Air Force's aerobatic team, the Red Arrows, will fly over the home of Irish rugby before the kick-off and leave a trail of the French colours overhead. Mr Murphy, meanwhile, is hopeful there will be a last-minute surge of interest in the match today, which will fill up any empty seats.
"We've been putting banners across town and trying to make an occasion of it. It's not every day that Dublin has a European final. We don't want people to suddenly realise on Saturday evening that they should have gone to see it. This is going to be an excellent game of rugby with dozens of international players."
