A different view on the Stadium issue

[gspain]

So the Ireland v Georgia game attracted a bigger tv audience than the Swiss game?????

Even allowing for the time differences this is simply staggering.

[IrelandUnited]

I agree gspain. My only conclusion is that the wavering support had given up on the team after a series of poorish results v Russia twice and the Swiss at home. The whole Saipan/MacCarthy out/ poor run of form thing has left a certain indifference which was seen in the attendances at the friendlies. I think the "innocence" - not quite the right word but you know what I mean - is gone and there is now a greater reluctance to accept glorious or not so glorious failure.

I hope that things improve. Our reseeding into seed group 2 hasn't helped and we do really need to pull it together now since reseeding into group 3 - a real possibility if we do not finish ahead of Israel and the Swiss - would make things very difficult in the long term looking to tne next 10-12 years.

In reality there will be a three team mini group. Israel, Swiss and us and we MUST win that or we could be in for a very difficult decade with a set of fans many of the younger of which are much less willing to celebrate for the sake of it than maybe we were 15 years ago.

[gspain]

Originally posted by IrelandUnited
I agree gspain. My only conclusion is that the wavering support had given up on the team after a series of poorish results v Russia twice and the Swiss at home. The whole Saipan/MacCarthy out/ poor run of form thing has left a certain indifference which was seen in the attendances at the friendlies. I think the "innocence" - not quite the right word but you know what I mean - is gone and there is now a greater reluctance to accept glorious or not so glorious failure.

I hope that things improve. Our reseeding into seed group 2 hasn't helped and we do really need to pull it together now since reseeding into group 3 - a real possibility if we do not finish ahead of Israel and the Swiss - would make things very difficult in the long term looking to tne next 10-12 years.

In reality there will be a three team mini group. Israel, Swiss and us and we MUST win that or we could be in for a very difficult decade with a set of fans many of the younger of which are much less willing to celebrate for the sake of it than maybe we were 15 years ago.

I think the figures are more indicative of the stats rather than the lack of interest. there was huge hype around the Swiss game. Furthermore this was not on Sky while the Georgia game was.

All I can think of is that people gave up at 2-0 and switched over to Turkey v England and the sampling was done o nthe 2nd half.