Jeff Probyn: Blame Sarries fan base not ERC for no-show, Edward

As the majority of the Aviva Premiership took a well- earned break this weekend, the expectation was that the only major game being played in England would be a sell-out.
No offence to the Army and Navy game, as it is always a great day out and very competitive – but it probably is not near the standard of a top professional club game played by the two leading teams of the English Premiership and French Top 14, Saracens and Toulon.
Both clubs have owners who have invested heavily over the years as they have tried to buy European  success and, at long last, they seem to have found the right formula as both teams have powered to the top of their respective Heineken groups, losing just a single game each.
Pre-match tickets sales at Twicknham of just 20,000 was disappointing for a match of this magnitude when both teams boast some of the world’s best players, let alone the fact that it is a semi-final in the principal European competition.
For the players it can be a rather eerie experience playing in a large, mostly empty stadium where they are making more noise than the crowd  because of the acoustics.
There is also that sense of disappointment when you look forward to running out onto a pitch with a sea of faces and hit a wall of noise as the roar of the crowd lifts you and gets the adrenalin pumping.
But with just over 20,000 fans in an 82,000 seat Twickenham it will be like peas in a colander rattling around in the empty seats. It’s bad for the players and also a bad advertisement for the sport.
As Saracens have experience of putting on ‘Big Games’ in venues like Wembley, their chief executive Edward Griffiths raised the question of how the game has been sold.
I think that was a bit of a cheap shot (one of many in the club verses country row) given that Sarries market their ‘Big Games’ for months in advance and usually with heavily discounted prices, whereas the semi-final venue was confirmed as Twickenham only on April 7 when Sarries beat Ulster.
It is a bit churlish of them to blame ERC for the lack of tickets sales as I am sure the Clermont Auvergne v Munster game in Montpellier and the Amlin cup semi-finals are all sell-outs. As the ‘home’ club you would expect them to bring the largest contingent of fans but Sarries’ fan appeal as a leading team is not yet in the same league as Leicester or Northampton, as their pragmatic decision to build a stadium with just a 10,000 capacity shows.
Toulon fans have a flight-only option without the ability to book early, so they would have had to pay a small fortune to travel from the South of France.
The promised return of Jonny Wilkinson and the presence of new golden boy Owen Farrell should have been enough to cause a late flurry of sales, but unfortunately that doesn’t seem to have happened and will have a negative impact on the revenue generated by today’s match.
Speaking of money brings me to the Six Nations committee’s decision to play games on Friday evenings during the next two Championships.
The idea of staging international games on a Friday evening in the middle of Cardiff (the only venue due to stage them at the moment) is either absolute madness or total genius depending on your perspective.
The only time it has happened before was in 2011 with mixed results. Wales lost to England, but the biggest losers were the fans who had to endure a nightmare journey to get to the ground with next to no prospects of getting home after the match.
That may have made for better television audience figures and possibly a bumper night for the hotel trade in Cardiff, but the chaos caused for those trying to get home with no late trains and traffic jams late into the night should have seen that idea shelved for good!
However, with little or no consideration for travelling fans or even those from Wales not living in or near Cardiff, the 2014 game against France and then the opener in 2015 against England will take place late Friday evening. This can only be at the behest of the BBC, as it makes no sense to put any game on when there are likely to be travel difficulties for spectators which could result in a reduced demand for tickets.
Television has forced the change in the traditional Saturday kick-off time, moving games to evenings or Sundays as they endeavour to show more live games and fill more of their schedule without a thought of the potential damage to the game.
Sport is a lot cheaper to produce for the BBC than drama or other programmes, even including the added costs of buying the broadcasting rights – but is it good for fans?
It does enable we ‘couch potatoes’ to watch all the games without having to leave the comfort of our sofas but it does make it a lot harder for those who are prepared to spend the ticket price and fill the stadiums.
That’s fine while the games are massively over-subscribed but should the Beeb decide that perhaps mid-week games are an option and it becomes the ‘norm’ for Friday kick-offs, it could be very different.
For instance, should Twickenham be earmarked for any Friday games, the idea of fighting through evening traffic in London, which is already a nightmare, may be a step too far, even for the most ardent of fans, and could lead to empty seats.
If this happens the Unions may find that the price of agreeing to all those changes was too high.