Six Nations Championship: The Irish squad arrived safely at their base in Wokingham, Berkshire yesterday tea-time and at least their new, leafy hideaway will give them sanctuary from the unprecedented clamour for tickets.

Each of the Irish squad is entitled to purchase only two tickets for the match, and love nor money cannot obtain a third in the build-up to this game.

On arrival at Heathrow airport yesterday morning, one Irish supporter, from St Mary's, happily conceded he paid €2,000 for his pair of tickets some months ago to ensure he would definitely have them and as tomorrow's match nears the going rate for a ticket is £1,000.

Much like night and day, the black market will always be with us, and with England not having had world champions in a major team sport in 38 years, tickets for a Twickenham international have rarely been in such demand than for England's first home game since their dramatic win over Australia in the World Cup final last November.

Furthermore new, more stringent guidelines on hospitality packages by the RFU, accompanied by an unprecedented advertising campaign to stop tickets being resold in an effort to curtail rogue hospitality events around Twickenham, have merely served to intensify the customary black-market activity.

This is the first test case for the RFU's new rules to properly police the hospitality market, Twickenham having set a limit of 8,000 of the 72,000 tickets to be sold by four official hospitality operators. Unofficial hospitality operators have thus been forced out of the market. A trawl through websites yesterday where hospitality match packages might normally be on offer repeated the messages "sold out" or "tickets unavailable".

According to a report in yesterday's London Evening Standard, one hospitality company, Pall Mall, which operates on an industrial unit next to the ground, have told companies who have paid over £70,000 for their unofficial services, that they cannot find tickets. They have told customers: "We are writing to inform you that the tickets for the above match have not been delivered by our suppliers."

All of this may have fuelled the black-market price, which come kick-off will probably have risen above £1,000 per ticket.

Victor Costello has been passed fit to take his place on the replacements' bench for Ireland tomorrow. Costello thus travelled with the remainder of the 22-man Irish squad yesterday while Trevor Brennan, who had stayed on for an additional 24 hours as cover at their City West base befor departure, returned to Toulouse.

There will be the customary eve-of-match "captain's run" this morning before the place-kickers travel to Twickenham for some practice at lunchtime.

• The English RFU last night announced the appointment of Abigail Findlay as England's new team manager. She takes over the post from Louise Ramsay, who has been seconded to the 2005 Lions tour of New Zealand, when Clive Woodward will be coach.

Findlay is currently head of corporate sales at London Irish, having previously held a similar post with Harlequins.