I'm calling it Lansdowne...
I went to the first game at the new Lansdowne Road Stadium today, Ulster/Leinster vs. Munster/Connacht. The two teams were made up of under-20 squad players, but the Ulster/Leinster players, especially Ulster's Luke Marshall and Paddy Jackson, were in a different class to their opponents. Those two are going to be stars for years to come, but the rest of that side clicked in a way that the Munster/Connacht selection completely failed to do, and the final score of 68-0 was in no way flattering, in fact the boys from the South and West were lucky to get 0.
There was another big event involved in this match though, as a certain tiny man made his first proper trip to Dublin (he's been through the city before on the way to and from the boat to Wales). He enjoyed the game, loved the fact that he got to go on the DART, and generally had a great time.
Have a few photos under the cut:
Matthew on the DART heading for Lansdowne Road
Isn't it nice?
One end only has a single low tier because it backs onto houses. Shame, because the stadium would have gone from great to utterly fantastic if it had been 3 tiers all around. The steward in this picture became Matthew's friend, he picks up all the women...
The one thing I genuinely hate about the stadium. Fuck A****.
Us, sitting in the stand.
The Ulster/Leinster team get a warm welcome onto the field.
Some game action. It wasn't a full house, but there were certainly more than 40,000 there. Which for an U-20 exhibition match is pretty good.
The other complaint about the stadium is that in the section we were sitting in you couldn't get a good view of either scoreboard/video screen. This was taken from the top of the exit ramp, we were sitting about 8 rows further back, and the steel completely blocked the view of that scoreboard, and the other scoreboard is low down on the side we were sitting on, so we couldn't see it at all. They need to put another scoreboard low down on the far stand side.
There was another big event involved in this match though, as a certain tiny man made his first proper trip to Dublin (he's been through the city before on the way to and from the boat to Wales). He enjoyed the game, loved the fact that he got to go on the DART, and generally had a great time.
Have a few photos under the cut:
Matthew on the DART heading for Lansdowne Road
Isn't it nice?
One end only has a single low tier because it backs onto houses. Shame, because the stadium would have gone from great to utterly fantastic if it had been 3 tiers all around. The steward in this picture became Matthew's friend, he picks up all the women...
The one thing I genuinely hate about the stadium. Fuck A****.
Us, sitting in the stand.
The Ulster/Leinster team get a warm welcome onto the field.
Some game action. It wasn't a full house, but there were certainly more than 40,000 there. Which for an U-20 exhibition match is pretty good.
The other complaint about the stadium is that in the section we were sitting in you couldn't get a good view of either scoreboard/video screen. This was taken from the top of the exit ramp, we were sitting about 8 rows further back, and the steel completely blocked the view of that scoreboard, and the other scoreboard is low down on the side we were sitting on, so we couldn't see it at all. They need to put another scoreboard low down on the far stand side.