Dublin is gearing up for the mother of all rugby weekends. Róisín Ingle hears what will be going on in the social scrum
Just after breakfast is served tomorrow morning, a large truck will pull up outside the Lansdowne Hotel on Pembroke Road in the heart of Dublin 4. Every bar stool, every table, every stick of moveable furniture will be packed up and driven away. The old carpet, kept back for this very purpose when the bar and restaurant were refurbished, will be laid over the new one.
No chances can be taken when hordes of rugby supporters line out for a crucial Ireland versus England grand-slam match. This is rugby-international weekend and, in the social scrum, tactics are everything.
After 15 years of working through rugby-international weekends, the hotel's manager, Margaret English - "I will definitely be cheering the Irish," she insists - is expert at coping with rugby-related socialising at the hotel.
"The whole place is turned into one giant bar; there is a band outside and people are packed like sardines inside. It's madness - there will be a lot of spilt beer - but there is never any trouble."
Immediately after the match, she says, it will be mostly men packing out the bar, with more women appearing from about 9 p.m. "That's when the talk about rugby stops, and it is very entertaining watching the men and women make contact over the evening," she says. "The power of alcohol and money is a sight to behold."
But those looking for a room are out of luck. "All the hotel rooms in the area are booked out," she adds, although that hasn't stopped couples seeking to rent a room for an hour in the past. "On those occasions we have to refuse," she laughs.
The post-match action takes place in the pubs, hotel bars and rugby clubs close to the stadium, and unless you have an invite to a swanky champagne charity function, plastic pint glasses and take-away food are the order of the day.
Pat, a 30-something rugby fan who doesn't have a ticket for the match, says he will wander down to Smyths on Haddington Road for the match if he doesn't get distracted by the many temptations along the way. "There are so many pubs and beer tents to choose from on the walk from the city centre. Then there are the women. There is a certain type of 'rugger hugger' who will regard occasions like this as prime hunting ground for a certain type of fine fellow," he says.
Many women will go home after the match to take a breather and get dressed for the evening's festivities, he explains. "The only problem is that by the time they come back into town, all dolled up, the men, who have been drinking since 11 a.m. that morning, have acquired big red faces and their shirts are opened down to the waist, revealing, in some cases, well developed beer bellies. Mysteriously, it doesn't seem to put the girls off."
Roger, from Cardiff, describes himself as a seasoned rugby traveller and says experienced revellers have a ritual. "They remove all wedding jewellery first of all and make sure the presents for the wives are already bought before they go. The really experienced guys will have the gifts wrapped and ready to be handed over on their return before they even leave their houses for the airport," he says, adding that an international in Dublin is particularly relished by fans.
"It is a two-night party with no strings attached, and you feel like you are 21 again. Every rugby trip has a bit of legend involved. We are either creating new stories to tell or telling the old ones from the past - and still finding them as funny as we did on the first time we heard them."
At Angels lap-dancing club in Leeson Street, assistant manager David Devereaux says they are expecting a bumper weekend.
"The lads are all up from the country and down from the North for the match and they are all up for fun, so we expect to be even more crowded than usual," he says.
Long regarded as the stuff of urban legend, health agencies report that there is definitely an upsurge in demand for the morning-after pill following rugby- international weekends.
"It is no urban myth," says Alison Begas, chief executive of the Dublin Well Woman Centre. "We have learned over the years to always hold unbooked slots for the Mondays after rugby internationals, when appointment demand goes up by 30 per cent," she says.
Catherine Heaney of the Irish Family Planning Association says English women travelling to the match should note that the pill is not as readily available as it is in the UK. "On the Monday following the French international game we did see more clients for the morning-after pill . . . This is a big sporting weekend, with soccer on Saturday and rugby on Sunday, so people will be socialising more. Our message is, think twice before you have casual sex, use a good- quality condom if you're having sex, and if you experience contraceptive failure or have unprotected sex you should access emergency contraception within 72 hours," she says.
That some recent international matches have been held on Sundays and not the day before is "a downer", according to Jim Leyden, former president of Blackrock Rugby Club, who will be enjoying the corporate-hospitality tent at Lansdowne Road.
"Whether we win or lose, absenteeism is going to shoot up in rugby circles for the Monday after the match," he says. "It won't stop people enjoying themselves, but they might think twice about exactly how much fun they can have."