'No complaints': London Irish defend level of support in Brentford

Declan Kidney has insisted that the move of London Irish back to the English capital has been a success even though just two of their eight Gallagher Premiership home matches so far this season have attracted five-figure attendances.

The Exiles are set to welcome a bumper crowd in excess of 13,000 to the Gtech Community Stadium for this Saturday’s annual St Patrick’s party fixture versus Northampton, a number that he claimed was very encouraging even though Saracens’ rivaling game against Harlequins is set to bring more than 50,000 fans to the Tottenham Stadium earlier in the day.

It was during the behind-closed-doors renewal of rugby in the pandemic when London Irish exited their long-term out-of-London home in Reading for a switch back to the new stadium in Brentford that has a 17,250 capacity and is usually sold out for Premier League football.

Rugby at the ground has been a different story, with no fixture yet to attract the sold-out signs, but the director of rugby Kidney claimed the club was on an upward trajectory. Their average attendance during the final season in Reading before the pandemic was 5,832 with a high of 9,259 for a clash versus Bath.

In 2021/22, their first campaign with the turnstiles open in Brentford, London Irish registered an average of 9,370 for the 11 league games they played there, four of the attendances being in excess of five figures – including a rugby record of 15,085 for last year’s Patrick’s party fixture versus the Saints.

Their crowd average so far this season is 8,310 and while that is now set for a generous boost, Kidney defended the numbers that were at recent home games during the Guinness Six Nations, namely the 6,353 there against Leicester just hours after England played Wales in Cardiff and the 5,630 last time out versus Sale just hours before Ireland took on Scotland in Edinburgh.

In 2019/20, these games in Reading versus Leicester and Sale attracted respective crowds of just 5,324 and 3,622, so London Irish have indeed fared much better this past month in Brentford despite the rival attraction of live Six Nations rugby on terrestrial TV.

“The commercial and marketing team have been brilliant,” Kidney enthused. “We were hit with a closed stadium for the first year. You mix that up with some of our own form being a little bit up and down and you are trying to do that [market the new ground] in the middle of a pandemic with all the financial savings that clubs have had to make – we have done really well.

“I know it is where I work but there is a cracking atmosphere and a massive buzz, just whatever way the stadium is built. There is a really good atmosphere and certainly with the two sides Saturday, I’d imagine the ball will be in play a fair bit.

“On those ones [the games versus Leicester and Sale], they are Six Nations weekends and people are a little rugby-ied out; there is too much rugby on the telly then too.”

This Saturday’s Irish match is actually on live TV, BT Sport broadcasting it after coverage of the London derby between Saracens and Harlequins on both that station and ITV, and Kidney is braced to ensure his team performs in front of their biggest home attendance this season.

“When you are on duty you must concentrate on it [the job] but certainly the walk from the car up to it has a whole different atmosphere about it. I love my job but sometimes you feel like putting down the bag and saying, ‘Yeah, I’ll join them for a few hours, that looks a bit of craic down there’.

“It is a whole day experience and the fact that it is a 5:30pm kick-off this year with TV coming in for it, it could be a whole day and night experience. For those people going to it, it’s a great chance to meet friends around London, catch up and have a reason to do it with a match at half-five.

“The set-up was always going to take a year or two, but we are like a mini-Cardiff Arms Park because we are parked right in the middle of a town and there are lots of things for people to do around the place. Anyone who comes, I haven’t heard any complaints yet.”

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