By rights, it should really be regarded as Leinster’s second biggest game of the season, superseded only by the Champions Cup final against Bordeaux Bègles in Bilbao. As demonstrated by Leinster’s four-year attempt to finally win a competition they used to routinely hoover up, the URC has never been harder to win. The arrival of the four South African franchises has, of course, had quite a bearing on that.
It may not have the history of the Premiership in England and certainly not of the French Championship, but the URC is unquestionably a tougher competition to win than the former.
On Friday at Croke Park, Leinster defend their URC title in a repeat of last season’s final at the same venue against the mighty Bulls from Pretoria. Leinster are Irish and European rugby royalty. The Bulls can boast similar status in South African and southern hemisphere rugby.
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Leinster have won four Champions Cups and a record nine versions of what is now the URC. The Bulls have won three Super Rugby titles and nine Currie Cups. Leinster have undoubtedly been weakened by injuries, notably of late to Andrew Porter, but they will still field a side largely comprised of Irish internationals as well as Rieko Ioane.
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The Bulls are seeking to atone for three previous final losses, having also come up short against the Stormers and Glasgow at home in 2022 and 2024. Behind a hard-nosed, uber-physical pack, their backs are sprinkled with two-time World Cup winners in Handré Pollard and Willie le Roux and the stardust of Canan Moodie and Kurt-Lee Arendse.
To have such a thunderous final in our capital should be a source of celebration. Ticket prices start at €20 for adults and €10 for children.
Yet, as of Monday, sales are seemingly between 25,000 and 30,000. It remains to be seen how interest levels are piqued between now and Friday, and how the weather pans out. But despite an extra week since the semi-finals compared with last season, it looks likely that the attendance will fall short of the 46,127 that saw Leinster’s commanding 32-7 win 12 months ago.
The combined attendance for the province’s home quarter-final and home semi-final, of 24,839, is also down on last season’s total of 32,641. Three seasons ago, the figure was 41,257 for the same two ties.
Even more alarming has been the significant decline in attendances for Leinster’s Champions Cup knockout ties. In each of the last four campaigns, Leinster have earned (note “earned”) home ties in the round of 16, quarter-finals and semi-finals. In 2022-23, the aggregate attendance for the three games was 125,323. This increased in 2023-24 to 173,140.
However, last season that figure dropped to 120,234 and this season their three ties drew 78,885 – less than half the total of 2023-24.
Of course, there were many mitigating factors for the reduced interest. Two seasons ago Leinster hosted Leicester and La Rochelle in fairly plum ties that attracted 40,000 and 50,000 crowds, and the novelty factor of a Croke Park semi-final drew a capacity 82,300.
By contrast, this season they drew Edinburgh – familiar URC opponents whom they’d beaten with a second-string team five weeks previously – at teatime on an Easter Sunday. This was followed by Sale Sharks and Toulon, less glamorous opponents than some of their Premiership and Top 14 opponents who brought small amounts of travelling fans.
But, of course, this glut of home games has compounded the underlying Aviva Stadium fatigue out there. Remarkably, this Friday will be Leinster’s 22nd home knockout tie in one or other competition over the last four seasons. Of the last 21 ties, 18 have been in the Aviva Stadium. Even Croke Park is losing its novelty value, for this will be their sixth match overall at GAA headquarters since May 2024.
The return to the redeveloped RDS, or Laya Arena, at the start of next season cannot come soon enough.
The province and their fans haven’t had a home knockout tie at the RDS since losing a URC semi-final to the Bulls by 27-26 in June 2022. Only 11,500 were there but they responded to a cracking match just six days after Leinster’s 76-14 quarter-final win over Glasgow at the RDS in front of 9,346.
Those figures are actually comparable to the 9,493 and 15,346 for the quarter-final and semi-final wins over the Lions and Stormers three and two weeks ago. In all instances, these are true Leinster fans as well. Also worth considering is in the midst of this season’s six home knockout ties came that expensive and deflating trip to Bilbao. There must have been 10,000 Leinster fans there and presuming at least 7-8,000 of them travelled from Ireland, the financial outlay will have been significant. Even a day trip was a minimum of €1,000 per head, with two= or three-night stays multiples of that.
Furthermore, there has been a strong uptake on season tickets. More than 13,000 (or about 90 per cent) of the 15,000 available for the refurbished Anglesea Stand and Grand Stand have been sold, ranging in price from €585 to €850 (and €1,520 for family packages) with only some tickets at either end of the ground still available.
Had the recent Lions and Stormers matches been in the RDS, that would have helped the atmosphere and driven up interest for next Friday – as will happen when the Laya Arena is packed next season. The more difficult it is to acquire tickets, the more in demand they become.
In all of this, Leinster’s consistency has become a stick with which to beat them (and themselves?). Put another way, one ventures that if Leinster had beaten Bordeaux Bègles, their trio of URC knockout ties since Bilbao would have generated sharply bigger turnouts.
Some of their wider fan base have become spoiled and entitled. Unless Leinster win a Champions Cup, their season is seen as a failure by many. It’s as if the team now owe some supporters at least one or two more Champions Cups. They don’t. They don’t owe anybody anything.
gerry.thornley@irishtimes.com
