Poor crowds compound Ireland's Bok loss

Ireland were left counting the cost of a 23-21 defeat by South Africa in more ways than one after the fixture failed to produce the usual sell-out crowd in Dublin.

A match against the world champions at the start of a World Cup season ought to have been a sure-fire guarantee of a full house, especially as Saturday’s match was Ireland’s first at their traditional Lansdowne Road home since the ground’s stunning 410 million euros (357 million pounds, 578 million US dollars) redevelopment.

But instead only 35,517 spectators turned up for the showpiece occasion, leaving some 15,000 tickets unsold.

Earlier in the week Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) officials admitted they’d made a mistake by forcing fans to buy tickets for this month’s Lansdowne internationals against South Africa, Samoa, New Zealand and Argentina in a bundle of four.

Asked to shell-out 340 euros (296 pounds, 478 dollars) many fans stayed at home and that remained the case even when the IRFU changed tack to provide a combined two-match package costing either 191 or 151 euros (166 or 131 pounds, 269 or 212 dollars).

The ’Lansdowne Roar’ was as much a feature of the old stadium as the now demolished groundsman’s cottage yet it was only until Saturday’s final quarter, where Ireland scored two tries to raise hopes of a dramatic come from behind victory, that a depleted crowd found its voice.

However, Ireland captain Brian O’Driscoll said it was as much down to the players to inspire the crowd as it was to fans to raise the team’s spirits.

“There weren’t very many (Irish) ’wow’ moments early on for them to roar the team on,” he said.

“They did get in behind the team once we started playing in that last quarter. It’s our responsibility to get them going.”

The Republic of Ireland is in the midst of a budgetary crisis that has led its government to announce a six billion euros public spending cut in 2011.

Critics have argued the IRFU ought to have taken more account of the country’s economic slump when setting its ticket prices.

But it was a similar story in Cardiff on Saturday where there were more than 20,000 unsold tickets for Wales’s match against Australia, which the Wallabies won 25-16.

However, numbers held up at Twickenham, which always gains from the large number of expatriate Tri-Nations fans living in London, where a crowd of more than 80,000 saw New Zealand beat England 26-16.

Visits by the Tri-Nations teams to Britain and Ireland were comparatively rare events when rugby union was still an amateur sport.

For example, in the first 75 years of Ireland-South Africa matches the Springboks played just seven internationals on Irish soil.

But Saturday’s fixture was South Africa’s fourth Dublin Test in six years.

In the professional era, the November Test programme has been seen as a money-spinner by Europe’s leading nations but now there are concerns that familiarity, if not breeding contempt, is leading to spectator apathy.

“If the reigning world champions in our spankingly new back yard cannot sell out then, New Zealand and England apart, what chance have the rest,” wrote former Ireland outside-half Tony Ward in the Irish Independent.

“Reducing ticket prices to a more realistic pitch would certainly help, but the fundamental problem goes so much deeper than that.

“Test rugby has already reached overkill levels. The goose that laid the golden egg is being well and truly slaughtered.”