IRFU REACTION: In warmly welcoming yesterday's announcement on the long-cherished redevelopment of Lansdowne Road, the Irish Rugby Football Union's chief executive, Mr Philip Browne, conceded that the project raised a variety of potential difficulties for the union.
Mr Browne, who has been with the union since 1995 and has been its chief executive since 1998, commented: "I'm absolutely delighted for Irish rugby, because I think Irish rugby would have had huge difficulties continuing to do what it's doing and to continue the progress that has been made over the last six years unless we had a decision like this.
"On a personal level, I've been coming to Lansdowne Road for years. It's been part and parcel of the fabric of life in Dublin, and to see that stadium endure into the future as a living, viable facility is fantastic, and hopefully we'll produce something that Irish rugby is proud of."
The benefits are twofold, according to Mr Browne, in that the stadium's capacity - which has already been cut from 54,000 to 49,000 for safety reasons - would otherwise have been further reduced. He also estimates that, at today's prices, the remodelled, 50,000 all-seater Lansdowne Road would generate an additional €3 million per annum for the IRFU.
Having devoted much time to this project, Mr Browne is aware that, in many ways, the hard work only starts now. Aside from the difficulties in ironing out ownership and management of a redeveloped Lansdowne Road and the whole planning process, complete with probable objections from residents, the projected timescale of the building work between 2006 and 2008 raises the possibility of the Irish rugby team having to play elsewhere in that period.
"I think inevitably we will have to [play elsewhere\]," admitted Mr Browne. "We haven't addressed that yet, but now that the project has legs we have to address those issues."
Unlike football, which has more flexible fixture itineraries, Irish rugby matches are cast in stone, in that the Six Nations Championship traditionally takes place in February and March, while the window for end-of-year tests at home against the big southern hemisphere teams is confined to November.
Ideally, the IRFU would like to keep any games which cannot be played while Lansdowne is being rebuilt in Ireland, and Mr Browne effectively confirmed that they would approach the GAA about making Croke Park available.
"We'll obviously need to talk to our sister unions to see if we can use their facilities, and, in effect, if we can't get a facility here in Ireland we'll have to look in the UK."
He conceded that the projected redevelopment would seem to jeopardise Ireland's proposed co-hosting of pool games in the 2007 Rugby World Cup with the main hosts France.
"We'll have to address that as well and we'll have to talk to the French federation, but again there was no point raising these issues until this project got legs."
It is estimated that of the €83 million being put forward by the IRFU and the FAI, the union is raising over two-thirds of that sum through advance sales of premium seats and boxes. Therefore, this project will not impinge on its ongoing annual costs, specifically the running of the professional game, while there remains the need to upgrade provincial and club grounds such as Munster's home ground, Thomond Park, in Limerick.
The president of the IRFU, Mr John Quilligan, also hailed yesterday's announcement. "We're in the course of a strategic review at the moment taking Irish rugby forward and this gives us a degree of certainty with which to plan for the future."
