Bledisloe Cup may be played at Twickenham

[travelling_gerry]

Australian rugby union officials are reportedly planning to stage a Bledisloe Cup clash in England next year.

The ARU and England’s Rugby Football Union are believed to have held preliminary talks over hiring Twickenham for a trans-Tasman Test, News Limited reports.

Read the rest in the West....

[slomo]

that would be massive over there.........

[Flamethrower]

From the Kiwi Rugby Heaven RugbyHeaven - New Zealand's home of Rugby news, coverage, video & pictures

The comments down the bottom are similar to what I've seen over here.

[Burgs]

On a phone connection so can't be arsed doing the links, but why would we need to?
There's ample interest in Australia with similar crowds, it's not as if we need to sell Rugby to the poms!
Spewing if the stinkers get a Bled before Perth did, hard enough to swallow it going to HK

[jargan83]

The comments down the bottom are similar to what I've seen over here.

They don't seem to be very impressed about this either, nor should they be

[slomo]

There's ample interest in Australia with similar crowds, it's not as if we need to sell Rugby to the poms!
Spewing if the stinkers get a Bled before Perth did, hard enough to swallow it going to HK

fair point burgs.......do you think they'd sent one of their 6 nations games down under?......i think not...

[laura]

Question: Do you think having Bledisloe games played as 'Bledisloe exhibition matches' takes away the competition that is Bledisloe? Should they just be called 'exhibition matches' and have no bearing on the Bledisloe result?

[Burgs]

100% from me Laura, not every match has to be a Bledisloe IMHO.
An "A's" or Under 25's or the like would still get a really decent crowd over there going on the numbers turning up to a Force development fixture.
My issue is (mainly) they getting a Bled there, not that they want to play a fixture there.

[blueandblack]

/me looks up Ticketmaster website for the 2011 "Bledisloe Exhibition match" on the moon.

[slomo]

/me looks up Ticketmaster website for the 2011 "Bledisloe Exhibition match" on the moon.

virgin-galaxy will fly you there!!....

[jargan83]

I agree with Laura and Burgs. Why does it have to be a bledisloe cup game? It deprives actual Australian Cities that have not hosted one, also takes the games away from the actual fans based in Australia and New Zealand. Not to mention sells out the trophy so instead of a genuine contest across 3 legs, we get 4 legs, the 4th not in the interest of growing the game, not in the interest of competition, but in the interest of a quick buck. I would like to know what the ARU is doing/has done with the money made from the 2003 RWC if their desperate enough to sell out their chances of actually winning the bledisloe

But hey they can't even sell the games out in Australia and New Zealand at the moment, so is that going to encourage them to take the games overseas more often or less??

Surley even an Exhibition Game between Australia and New Zealand would sell out overseas in some of the locations that are being thrown around. If they legitmately wanted to grow the game they don't have to sell out as well?

Thats all this is, nothing more, nothing less

[beige]

Don't call them exhibition matches - they should still be full tests - but they shouldn't make them Bledisloe games either.

And personally - Hong Kong yes, Twickenham no...

[shasta]

Full Test status, fine. Bledisloe fixture, no.

It's all about getting their hands on some of that northern hemisphere currency that the SH coffers just can't compete with ATM.

Tickets for the Wallabies v England in November are roughly averaging 130 Quid. Twickenham holds 82,000. Current exchange rates make that about A$ 24 million in ticket sales.