WHY CHAMPIONS CUP NEEDS IRELAND DOUBLE FOR A FITTING FINALE

WHEN the Champions Cup quarterfinals take place this weekend, organisers will be silently hoping for a double Irish success. The credibility of the event is at stake.

If Leinster beat Wasps in Dublin and Munster see off Toulouse at Thomond Park, Europe’s showpiece club tournament will be set for a grand, vibrant climax to the 2016-17 campaign.

But if Wasps sting their formidable hosts, officials will be confronted by the worst- case scenario — a semi-final in England.

It has become the graveyard of knock- out matches. Last season, the penultimate round of the competition was played in front of vast swathes of empty seats in Reading and Nottingham. The overall lastfour attendance was 38,968. In 2009, when Leinster and Munster locked horns in the Irish capital at the same stage, the figure was 126,420.

A Wasps victory tomorrow would set up a clash with one of Clermont Auvergne or Toulon at Franklin’s Gardens. No offence to Northampton’s smart, modern arena, but it is not on a scale which befits the occasion. A semifinal in the Champions Cup should be a red-letter day in the calendar, but the English public have not bought into that notion.

Premiership Rugby wanted to identify a venue with a capacity of around 25,000 but none were available, so the limit will be a shade over 15,000. Northampton fill the place for nearly every home game, so there is no sense that there is a chance something special would be in the offing.

What this issue exposes is the over-reliance on football stadia for bigger rugby occasions. The last World Cup was a perfect example of that problem. Manchester United vetoed plans to stage matches at Old Trafford and that had a significant knock- on effect on planning.

For the record, expect both Irish sides to prevail this weekend — to the delight of European Professional Club Rugby’s marketing department — along with Saracens and Clermont.