Irish Rugby Fans will need a lot of persuading if suggestions to spread the load of hosting Friday night 6 Nations games at the Aviva Stadium bear fruit in coming years.
Tonight’s game will make for very visual TV experience and an electric atmosphere in the ground but this is outweighed by concern over the difficulties of travel arrangements and the need to take an extra day off work if going to the game.
Neither would be as wholly relevant to a home fixture but fans travelling from Cork, Limerick and Belfast in particular would not relish the journey up on Friday afternoon or back in the small hours of Saturday night.
In total seven Friday night games have been staged since the concept was first introduced. Every one has featured Wales with six of those at the Millennium Stadium. The one held outside Wales so far was in Paris where the Welsh were the away side.
The reason for Friday nights was at the behest of TV companies who wanted to spread the game times over the weekend to maximise viewing numbers.
With new broadcasters coming into play next year including ITV in England and TV3 in the Irish market, the fixture schedule will once again be a subject of interest and if as expected, Friday night games remain on the table then the question will inevitably arise over Twickenham and the Aviva Stadium pulling their weight, and that of their perhaps reluctant patrons.
Sport for Business members voted over 2:1 against the idea in an online poll conducted between Monday 6th March and Thursday 9th March.
