Johannesburg - The South Africa ‘A’ team will play before a sold-out crowd of 42 000 in Cork on Thursday night after opponents Munster moved the game to a bigger capacity stadium.
Munster’s home ground, Thomond Park, has a capacity of 25 000 but with tickets in high demand, the game is being played at the bigger Gaelic Football ground, Páirc Uí Chaoimh, in Cork, and the 42 000 tickets disappeared in no time.
It will be the first time a rugby match will be played at the stadium, which is the home ground of the Limerick hurling team, and Munster coach Graham Rowntree told reporters that the first time his players set foot in the ground will be for the kick-off.
“We won’t train there. I want it to be a special moment,” said the former England prop. “The lads are going to feel it (the atmosphere) right from the warm-up. It’s obviously going to be the same size rugby pitch, just a different feel …”
One thing the Munster players will be familiar with is the posts — the Thomond Park posts had to be transferred to the ground because it did not have rugby posts.
Rountree said his team and their fans had been waiting for a long time for this match against what amounts to a Springbok B team.
“You can see by how quickly it was sold out. We are spoiled with our support base and it shows how important this match is to this province.”
Rountree said the South Africa ‘A’ team resembles an All-Stars team from the United Rugby Championship (URC).
“Look how well the South African teams did last year — they proved a lot of people wrong. We had some real ding-dong battles and we’re about to have another. The Stormers pushed us early on, they went three tries up against us in Thomond Park. And the Sharks, too ... Then we went over to Pretoria and Johannesburg for extremely hard games.
“I’ve got nothing but respect for the South African provinces, as I always have done as a player and a coach. I played against them a lot when I was a player.
“It’s an all-star URC team, some familiar faces in there, and we know what we’ve got to deal with.”
IOL Sport