HEINEKEN CUP NEWS:'THE HEINEKEN Cup semi-finals draw will take place on Sunday following the completion of the round six pool matches, with the possibility that Munster and Leinster could again meet each other for a place in the final.
The draw, which may yet be shown on Sky Sports, will be live on French television at 5.30pm Irish time, Welsh channel, S4C and live on ercrugby.com after the final match between Sale Sharks and Toulouse and when all of the final pool groupings are known.
Once again, if the two provinces are drawn together, the issue of where they might play the match would become an issue, with Croke Park again the most practical venue because of its 80,000-plus capacity. The Aviva Stadium will not be completed by the weekend of May 1st-2nd, when the semi-finals are to take place.
Last May’s spectacular meeting between the teams, which Leinster won 25-6 on their way to winning the trophy, drew 82,208 fans and posted a rugby world record for a game between two clubs.
Even this weekend for Leinster’s final Heineken Cup pool match against London Irish at Twickenham, there has been a healthy interest, although Irish’s 31-22 defeat by Llanelli at the weekend hands an advantage to Leinster in terms of topping the pool.
The Exiles were forced to move the game to Twickenham from Reading’s ground because of an FA Cup fourth-round tie in the Madejski Stadium against Burnley on Saturday at 12.45pm. The Heineken Cup match kicks off at 6pm.
London Irish have said over 30,000 tickets have already gone out with hopes that London’s indigenous Irish population will provide additional walk-up fans on the day.
Leinster says that upwards of 5,000 fans are making the short journey across. Ticket prices from Ticketmaster range from €8.65 and upwards for under-16s to €24.70 and upwards for adults.
“We estimated that for the Wasps match last season there would be 4000-5,000 fans going,” said a Leinster official. “But in the end we reckoned that maybe 9,000 or 10,000 turned up on the day.”
Because of the bigger financial burden of playing in Twickenham, the home team need well over 30,000 to make the match profitable. When Leinster were beaten 19-12 by Wasps in 2009 in a fifth round match, it drew 33,282. The capacity of Twickenham is over 80,000.
“Yes we need to be over 30,000. But I would be very confident of that,” said a London Irish spokesman.
“From an atmosphere point of view you would need to fill that bottom tier of the ground. A game against Toulouse in the Heineken Cup semi-final was the only other match we played in Twickenham and the attendance for that was 30,554. We are already past that for Saturday.”
The Twickenham match had looked as if it would be a winner-takes-all affair but Bob Casey’s team now need a maximum five points and must stop Leinster from gaining anything from the game. It is a huge task if London Irish are to make the knock-out stages for only the second time, a massive challenge, as England and London Irish scrumhalf Paul Hodgson admits.
“Leinster are flying at the moment and they are a formidable side. They are coming for the win and we are in no doubt as to how tough it will be. It will be one of the toughest games his team has faced, a truly monumental task.”
Casey’s side won 12-9 in Dublin in round one, which hit Leinster’s hopes. But since then the reigning champions have pulled together, although the recent outing after a snow-bound New Year saw them a little rusty in parts.
“We will just be looking to put in a performance that will give us a chance to win and then what will be will be after that. We’ll embrace the challenge and we are looking forward to it,” Hodgson added.
“London Irish is still a special group of players. We’ve got guys from all over the world and we’ve got some great personalities. So we won’t dwell on this result too long but we’ll definitely go through the game with a fine tooth comb to try to put things right.”
One of their foreign contingent is highly-regarded, prop Clarke Dermody from New Zealand, who has given the club a welcome boost by signing a new two-year deal which will keep him at the Madejski Stadium until June 2012.
The 29-year-old former All Black has impressed with his scrummaging and work-rate around the field since joining from Super 14 outfit the Highlanders in 2007.
CJ van Der Linde, who came on for Leinster last week, has had no adverse reaction to his injury, while Jonathan Sexton and Shane Jennings, who were also both out for long spells through suspension and injury, successfully came through the match against Brive.
