They said it could never be done. Well, somebody somewhere must have said it, namely that Leinster couldn’t possibly fill out even a restricted Aviva Stadium capacity of 22,300 for early season URC games against teams like the Dragons and the Lions.
Granted, their first home game ‘in exile’ at the Aviva against the Dragons was not a sell-out, but the 18,200 was still the equivalent of an RDS sell-out. To put this in some kind of perspective, that was 6,000 more than was the case when the Dragons were last in the RDS.
Furthermore, when the Lions previously visited the RDS in February 2022 – Leinster winning 21-13 – the attendance was 10,469, meaning Saturday night’s crowd will be more than double the attendance from that night.
This is quite extraordinary, and when added with the admittedly inflationary 81,000-plus which attended the Croke Park meeting with Munster, the net result is that Leinster’s average attendance so far is over 40,500.
What the increased attendances at the Aviva Stadium for Leinster matches tells us is that spectator comfort is a particularly prized asset for prospective ticket sales. Compared to a winter’s night in February, even if rain is a factor the Aviva offers more shelter and more comfort at competitively priced tickets, whereas the remaining tickets after season tickets at the RDS are uncovered seating at either end of the arena.
Perhaps, too, it reflects Leinster’s increased drawing power this season on the back of unleashing frontline Irish internationals such as Garry Ringrose, Jamison Gibson-Park, James Ryan and Jack Conan from opening night in Edinburgh. Many thousands had probably purchased tickets for the Dragons game in the hope that they would see RG Snyman’s debut.
That eye-catching selection for the round three fixture away to Treviso – with Hugo Keenan, James Lowe, Andrew Porter, Rónan Kelleher, Tadhg Furlong, Snyman and Caelan Doris all making their seasonal debuts – saw a spike in sales for the Croke Park game. This in turn demonstrates that Leinster supporters have been galvanised by the sight of so many frontline Test players being unveiled sooner in the season than is often perceived to be the case.
Given his case history with Munster and the Springboks, the impact of his athleticism and carrying, and his form, one would venture that Snyman has had significant drawing power.
And to think that Jordie Barrett hasn’t arrived yet!
New Zealand’s Jordie Barrett makes a break during the Rugby Championship game against South Africa at Ellis Park in Johannesburg in August. Photograph: Catherine Kotz/Inpho/Photosport
That said, videos of Barrett proving his fitness when training with the All Blacks this week won’t have done any harm to ticket sales for Leinster’s second Champions Cup pool game against Clermont Auvergne at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday, December 14th, which has a 5.30pm kick-off.
The stadium will be fully open for that game and already ticket sales have exceeded 25,000.
However, one also senses that the vast majority of Leinster fans have long since bought into the concept of squad rotation and appreciate their good fortune in supporting a squad with such an unrivalled depth of home-grown talent.
Not the least of Leo Cullen’s exceptional skills is the juggling act he performs with so much talent at Leinster’s disposal. He made seven changes for the second game against the Dragons, another 12 for Benetton, just the three for the Munster match (which tells us much), seven for the trek to Connacht and another nine for this Lions’ game.
In all, by close of business on Saturday night, with Robbie Henshaw and Cormac Foley having made their competitive seasonal debuts, Leinster will have used 47 players, including eight academy players – five of whom are in the squad for this round six game – in their first six games.
Leinster supporters also know that in many instances when academy players are being blooded they are watching international quality players of the future. And often of the near future as well, for as James Culhane reasoned recently, when a young player breaks into the Leinster team the next step up is often not that far away.
Sam Prendergast, who landed the winning penalty on his man of the match debut against the Lions in April 2023 and now returns to the starting line-up against them after his exploits with Emerging Ireland, is a case in point.
After all, when Jamie Osborne played at outside centre in that win over the Lions in February 2022, he was still in the Leinster sub-academy. Yet within two and a half years he was starting and starring at fullback for Ireland in a famous win over the Springboks.
Oh yeah, and Leinster are also looking to extend their seven-point lead at the top the table by completing a 100 per cent record from this first block of six games. Being so darned good helps too of course.
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