Madam, – I am an avid rugby supporter and have always strongly supported my country and province. I hope to make the Junior Cup team in my school come February.
At the weekend, I attended the Ireland-South Africa international.What I saw was a load of big-pocketed men who dished out large amounts of money to go to a game just to be seen there.
We have lost the real supporters. They are the people who add a bit of fun and get a place rocking.
Whenever I go to a GAA game or see one on television you hear people bellowing out the anthem and screaming for their county at the highest their voices can go. You see them clad in their county colours and, most of all, they support their team to the very end. None of that was evident on Saturday.
We have got to make rugby a game for everyone. If we don’t, then we can forget about any future success. Croke Park on November 28th, 2009, showed what we could have become. The Aviva Stadium on November 6th, 2010, was a glimpse of what Irish rugby is on the brink of becoming. – Yours, etc,
A chara, – As someone whose first experiences of rugby internationals at Lansdowne Road were back in the era of Tom Kiernan, Mike Gibson, et al, as a 10-year-old sea scout selling match programmes outside the ground before the kick-off, thereby getting in for free, and who for years wore the black-and-white hoops of Belvedere at school and club level with pride, the inaugural match in the new Aviva Stadium against the Springboks was quite a let-down.
In saying that, I’m not referring primarily to the ticket pricing fiasco, the home team’s ultimate lack of success or their substandard jerseys. The greatest disappointment for me were the numerous “fans”, who either didn’t return after the half-time break or left before the end of the match.
To these people I would like to say the following – if you’re not going to get behind the Irish team from the playing of the national anthem until the final whistle blows, then please don’t show up as you’ve obviously got more pressing things to attend to, like getting in a round or a good place at the bar for yourself and your alicadoo pals. – Is mise,