Bosses are hoping for the best as fans return

RUGBY bosses are hoping the return of a limited number of fans at a big rugby match this weekend kick-starts crowds being given the green light to attend games on a permanent basis again.

The English Premiership clash between Harlequins and Bath at The Stoop is being used for a trial run, with 3,500 being let into the ground.

And European Rugby boss Simon Halliday feels that can be followed by supporters also attending Champions Cup quarter-final games and the Six Nations as the sport finally returns to some sort of normality.

He warned rugby simply cannot continue without crowds, with the money generated from big Test matches filtering down into the grassroots game.

The postponed 2020 tournament finishes next month when Ireland meet Italy on October 24, followed by an October 31 Super Saturday. Wales kick off the day by hosting Scotland at a London venue yet to be confirmed, before England travel to Italy and France meet Ireland in Paris. Wales are heading to London because the Principality Stadium is out of bounds and they want as many supporters as possible at the Scotland game.

“We massively respect the protocols in place but I believe people in positions of authority in the sporting world have got to keep asking the question,” Halliday told the Daily Mail.

“The game simply cannot continue if we don’t get crowds back in. That is clear. I don’t want to think about the potential impact of no crowds in the Six Nations. That revenue filters down to the grassroots games - that’s what’s at stake.”

HARLEQUINS chief executive Jamie Dalrymple feels staging today’s 3,500 fans test event against Bath will prove just as challenging as organising an 80,000 crowd for a big Twickenham match.

Quins have spent recent weeks preparing after being chosen by the Government for the pilot game in rugby. And Dalrymple says no stone has been left unturned to make the day a success, with the rugby and sporting world at large watching on.

“We’ve got a few thousands people in the ground, you’d look at that at face value and think that’s nothing,” Dalrymple told the Evening Standard.

“The team with our experience and professionalism could probably do that stood on their head, but there are so many more complexities to it. We organise The Big Game at Twickenham every year, which is 80,000 fans, and the complexities of that are vastly different to when we have 15,000 at The Stoop.

“The enormity of what we are trying to achieve on Saturday probably ranks really, really highly up there in terms of other events that we have delivered.”