Rugby returns to its ancestral home

Connacht/Munster v Leinster/Ulster:COME 2.30pm this afternoon rugby returns to its ancestral home. It was December 31st, 2006, that a rugby ball, or any ball for that matter, was last kicked around Lansdowne Road. The ground has since been modernised and rechristened the Aviva Stadium, with today's O2 Challenge seeing a combined Connacht/Munster selection face a Leinster/Ulster equivalent.

All the players on show will be under-20, many of them the best talent to come from the schools game in the past 12 months, but it should be pointed out that of the 44, only 10 are presently contracted to provincial academies as pre-season training has prohibited the cream of young Irish talent being showcased on the first historic outing.

This is a shame and a missed opportunity with this date only really being utilised so the IRFU could ensure that rugby was the first sport in the new stadium, not soccer.

Of course, the FAI will have the last laugh as Manchester United arrive to face an Airtricity League XI on Wednesday, followed quickly by the visit of Argentina (alas, without Diego Maradona so we’ll have to be sated by Lionel Messi) on August 11th.

Although, with 45,000 tickets sold, this is a dry run for the upcoming soccer events, with the first major rugby match, currently scheduled anyway, being the visit of world champions South Africa on November 6th.

Not that 45,000 are expected to show up. That would require all the 10-year ticket holders and corporate boxes to be filled. The affluent tend to evacuate the city over the August Bank Holiday weekend, while the working class citizens plough on without them.

Twenty five thousand may well attend, mostly out of interest, despite some fairly substantial games in a different code taking place across town this afternoon that may entice the floating sports fan. Regardless, from the perspective of stadium director Martin Murphy, it is an opportunity to fine tune new systems ahead of bigger days.

“Weve been building up to this match as if it is a Six Nations or full soccer international. We’ve had some minor events here that had 9,000 and 11,000 at each of them but this is the first time that every part of the stadium will be put under pressure. We expect to learn a lot.”

The place was littered with work men yesterday as the fine new infrastructure continues to be honed on a daily basis.

A potentially disruptive concern, raised during the captain’s run, was the visibility for place-kickers shooting into the Havelock Square end. This has no second or third tier, due to issues raised by local residents during the planning stages, and the glass background could potentially camouflage the uprights, certainly in comparison to the other end.

“We are aware of that and we asked Mark Tainton, the kicking coach for the Irish team, to come in and he said absolutely no problem,” said Murphy. “In fact, Declan Kidney is quite happy with it as well. The posts are fine. In fact, the kickers have their own way of addressing the posts.”

So, no problem then.

But back to the match. They are not the next wave of talent yet; some of them can be the wave after that. Most players are part of the provincial sub-academies, while those who follow the schools game will remember former St Michael’s centre Alex Kelly and the exciting Methody outhalf Paddy Jackson. And there are others. “I think it is an opportunity to put your hand up for selection (for the Irish Under-20s squad), definitely,” said Leinster Academy chief Colin McEntee.

For players who are maybe slightly off the radar this is their chance.

For the participants it is the chance of a lifetime, for the rest of us it is a low key start of something special. For the public, no more tickets can be purchased but RTÉ are showing highlights tonight.

Others are quick to remind us that Kerry, Down, Dublin and Tyrone are in Croke Park today. The rugby fan can counter by asking, is that on the “Dort” line?

CONNACHT/MUNSTER – C Boland (Connacht); T Leader (Connacht), D Horgan (Munster), B Sargent (Munster), S Leydon (Connacht); J Holland (Munster), M Dolan (Connacht, capt); A Spring (Connacht), K Stokes (Munster), P Mullen (Munster), R O’Herlihy (Munster), D O’Mahony (Munster), S Buckley (Munster), A Conneely (Connacht), D Qualter (Connacht). Replacements: J Rael (Munster), S Wooton (Connacht), I Mullarkey (Munster), D Heffernan (Connacht), R Barry (Munster), G Quinn-McDonogh (Munster), J Costigan (Munster), C Quinn (Munster).

LEINSTER/ULSTER – S Coghlan Murray (Leinster); C Gilroy (Ulster), A Kelly (Leinster), L Marshall (Ulster, capt), A Boyle (Leinster); P Jackson (Ulster), P du Toit (Leinster); J Tracy (Leinster), J Murphy (Ulster), M Moore (Leinster), I Henderson (Ulster), R Hynes (Leinster), S Lecky (Ulster), M McGroarty (Leinster), D McGuigan (Ulster). Replacements: P Carroll (Leinster), A Warrick (Ulster), M Fallon (Leinster), P Marks (Ulster), C Spence (Ulster), C Marsh (Leinster), M McAuley (Ulster).