For all the doom and gloom encircling Irish rugby in advance of the Heineken European Cup, there is a discernible buzz of anticipation around Donnybrook and its environs prior to this Saturday's showpiece game between Leinster and Toulouse. The Leinster Branch have clearly made a big effort with this one and their other home European ties. Chief executive Eddie Wigglesworth promises "a few surprises" with regard to what will be the best marketed game so far in this country.
Accordingly, he goes so far as to suggest that the attendance might even be a capacity 7,500. Tickets for the game are £5, with an additional £3 for a stand seat and £1 for schoolboys. "All we need is a good day and I guarantee it will be spectacular."
The pre-match entertainment will begin an hour before the 3.00 kick-off and includes open-air bars, hot-food stands, a jazz band, a rugby shop selling Leinster's new strip and other merchandise, and a corporate entertainment tent.
A covered, seated stand for 400 spectators is also being installed at the Bective Rangers end, which should greatly add to the dynamic impact of the ground. If the modern, professional era has shown rugby anything, it is that games must, in effect, become more than mere games.
"We are creating a sense of occasion for these European matches," says Pat Fitzgerald, the chairman of the Leinster Branch's marketing and sponsorship committee. "Nothing like this has ever been done before. This is a first-off."
In truth the potential for Donnybrook, as anywhere else really, has never been fulfilled. Wigglesworth cites the eve-of-full-international, A matches, at the venue on Friday afternoons. "They are an undersold commodity."
Donnybrook's scope for hosting more big-game occasions will undoubtedly be enhanced when their new floodlights are eventually switched on come the end of October or early November. Just in time, ahem, for the European Cup quarter-finals.
Nevertheless, home support is usually most voluble at the aforementioned A internationals and Leinster manager Jim Glennon recognises the potential importance of such an atmosphere. "We're looking for an A international atmosphere, only more parochialised, and it's up to the Dublin public to provide us with that."
Indeed Leinster's decision to play their home games at Donnybrook rather than Lansdowne Road is a deliberate one - and a sensible one. A crowd in the region of 7,000 would be lost in Lansdowne, and seem like about 2,000 or 3,000. In Donnybrook's tighter environs, where the spectators are packed in and closer to the pitch, the same attendance will seem more like double that. It could conceivably be worth 10 points or more to Leinster.
"We haven't really played a big game at Donnybrook," Glennon points out. "The games against Pontypridd, Cardiff and Leicester were all played in Lansdowne Road." Leinster's mood has been buoyed by a clean bill of health and yesterday's relatively quick decision to retain the starting XV which beat Connacht and pipped Munster for the Interprovincial title. Glennon points out that "Alan McGowan has been kicking very well and we haven't conceded a try other than a chargedown try against Ulster. So things are settling."
What's interesting is their choice of five forwards and two backs on the replacements' bench. Glennon accepts it is "a calculated gamble," the rationale behind it being Mike Ruddock's motto that rugby is now a 22-man game. Clearly, Leinster feel there is a greater risk of their forwards running out of puff than their backs.
Toulouse are likely to finalise their team tomorrow before leaving for Dublin via Paris. Emile N'tamack is out of action until the knock-out stages at least with a groin problem. However, in an otherwise full-strength selection, the expectation is that their experienced, one-time French out-half Christophe Deylaud will pass a fitness test on his knee injury to make his first appearance of the season.
They are apparently debating whether to play one of the world's most renowned props, Christian Califano, at hooker in a fearsome front-row, or go with the more specialised Alain Begue.
The French champions of the last four years and innaugural European Cup winners are citing this competition as their priority this season after last year's 77-17 walloping by Wasps and subsequent semi-final defeat to Leicester.
Boasting a huge squad, they are the only one of the French quartet in the Cup to have won their first three championship games, having beaten Biarritz (away) 23-11, Dax (home) 25-17 and Beziers (away) 35-11.
