European Cup: All 49,000 tickets for Saturday's European Cup quarter-final between Munster and Perpignan at Lansdowne Road have been sold. In quick time too.
The French club kept their 11,000 tickets - travelling teams are entitled to 25 per cent of the allocation for the last eight - but one suspects the corporate world and more ingenious of Munster supporters will avail of a large portion of these.
"The game was sold out practically straight after the tickets went on sale," said Munster PRO Pat Geraghty. "We put 4,500 tickets on the Ticketmaster website and they were snapped up within an hour."
Leinster are also beginning to rival their southern brethren in the supporting stakes with at least 5,000 people expected to descend on Toulouse. The game has been switched to the local soccer stadium, which holds 37,000.
The Leinster Branch sold 4,800 tickets with several hundred other supporters sourcing tickets in Toulouse. Tournament sponsors Heineken will erect big screens at the Stade Ernest Wallon for the visiting Leinster contingent to watch the Lansdowne Road game.
Leinster v Toulouse kicks-off at 3pm (Irish time) followed by Munster against Perpignan at 5.30pm. Both are live on Sky Sports. Leicester Tigers v Bath is also live from the Walkers Stadium at 12.30.
Meanwhile, the postponement of last Saturday's Celtic League tie between the Llanelli Scarlets and Munster has presented that competition's organisers with a fixture backlog. The Scarlets are already chasing matches due to their prolonged involvement in the Anglo-Welsh Cup. They play Wasps in the final on April 9th and the Ospreys in the Celtic League this weekend.
The lack of an alternative venue also denied Munster a crucial warm-up game ahead of a return to European Cup action.
"The competition is going to have to look at having alternative venues in place like in the case of the Heineken Cup," said Geraghty. "If this occurred at Thomond Park we could have switched to Musgrave Park at short notice."
In another contentious decision Leinster's game against the Borders has been switched to 9pm on Friday week in order to accommodate the Melrose Sevens competition.
