Rugby makes pitch as Ireland’s No.1 love

Saturday’s United Rugby Championship clash between Leinster and Munster was unremarkable on many levels, given the result went along expected lines.

Four first-half tries helped Leinster build a virtually unassailable lead and though Munster managed to land a blow or two in the second-half, the result was well beyond doubt before the finish even though the hosts failed to register a single score in the second period.

Meetings between the provinces have generally failed to produce much of a spark over the last while, with Leinster often far superior to their neighbours from the south over the last 15 years, going back to their last meeting at GAA HQ in the 2009 Heineken Cup. Over the last 15 meetings between the sides, Munster have won only two.

What really stood out, though, from Croke Park on Saturday, aside from anything too significant on the pitch, was the fact that it was watched by a crowd of over 80-thousand fans – a record attendance for a United Rugby Championship fixture.

The fact that so many people paid up to watch what, by all intents and purposes, was a regular season league match, reflects the massive surge in popularity in rugby in this country over the last 20-odd years. It also underlines the huge success precipitated by the improvement in the standard of Irish players, with the national team regularly competing for titles, and it underlines the good work carried out by administrators to bring the game to this point on these shores.

It led to us actually discussing in the Off The Ball office last week whether Ireland had indeed become rugby country!

That’s a bit of a stretch, but it’s also worth considering with falling attendances at inter-county GAA matches a major topic of discussion all through the course of the championship season in 2024.

To continue the Off The Ball theme, Liam Toland and Gerry Thornley spoke with Eoin Sheahan on last week’s Wednesday Night Rugby when they cast their minds back to an interpro derby played between Munster and Leinster in the 1990s. The game took place at Dooradoyle, with work ongoing at Thomond Park, and there were only somewhere between 500 and 2000 supporters at the game.

Thornley observed that, since then, Munster and Leinster has blossomed into arguably the greatest club rugby rivalry in the world.

Of course, this fixture has form when it comes to attracting a big crowd. In 2009, the Heineken Cup semi-final between the pair sold out Croke Park. By contrast, the Dublin footballers’ support in particular this year was heading in the other direction.

Long the best supported team, by numbers, in the country, Dublin’s crowds dwindled to such an extent that just 23,000 people attended Jones’ Road for their Leinster final defeat of Louth.

It begs the question – why has rugby become the go-to sport for many punters?

Well, for a start, consider the star quality on show most weeks. The talent at the disposal of Leinster, in particular, is staggering. Their team against Benetton the week before last reiterated that, with a World Cup winner in RG Snyman making his debut while no less than eight – eight! – Irish internationals made their return to the team, in what was the first time Leinster fielded their strongest possible 15 this season. In December, New Zealand star Jordie Barrett will further add to the star power in Leo Cullen’s squad.

The Leinster-Munster rivalry is also one that transcends rugby itself. It’s like Galway versus Mayo or Liverpool against Manchester United; you don’t necessarily need to be a rugby aficionado to know that it’s a big deal.

More to the point, though, many fans who you could consider as fair-weather supporters view rugby as the sport they want to go to for a social occasion. I can count many people I know that wouldn’t necessarily be able to name five teams competing in the URC, but they’ll plod along to a Leinster game in the RDS or, this season, the Aviva or Croke Park as a social occasion, because rugby does that side of things very well.

The sport is marketed superbly and the match day experience, all things considered, is a very pleasant one. But, there are pros and cons to rugby being a sport so many people want to go to.

A major positive is it’s never a problem to fill out stadiums for the major fixtures and even the less attractive matches do well on the gates. But, the con to that is the atmosphere can be flat as some of those watching on are not terribly interested in the game itself.

Indeed, when considering the reasons for a dim atmosphere at Ireland’s meeting with Wales in the Six Nations earlier this year, Gerry Thornley observed: “It also doesn’t help that many fans seem to regard Irish Six Nations games as social occasions, akin to an open-air party/dining/drinking occasion.” Beyond that perceived issue, however, it’s hard not to admire how rugby has pulled itself up by the bootstraps since the game turned professional in the 1990s at a time when the Irish national team was struggling. Since then, the IRFU has helped stimulate steady progress on a number of fronts and clubs, provinces and the national team are all reaping the benefit of that – as evidenced by Saturday’s turnout at Croke Park, which helped generate €1.7million in revenue for Leinster. That’s a huge, huge positive for the province, as that money is reinvested in a variety of different areas to drive further growth.

More locally, the improvements currently ongoing at the Sportsground – now known as the Dexcom Stadium – reflects Connacht’s ambition to continue to strive for that little bit more. It’s always going to be difficult to compete with the other three provinces given they cover larger areas and have access to the larger population centres but as rugby’s stock continues to rise here, it’ll lift all boats.

Saturday’s outing at Croke Park shows rugby is doing a lot right in a competitive sporting landscape.