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17th October 2024
01:17pm BST
Ireland and Munster legend Donal Lenihan has called for Pairc Ui Chaoimh to be made available as a battleground for future Munster and Leinster showdowns.
Last week, Leo Cullen's side beat Graham Rowntree's Munster men in a 26-12 win in Dublin. Over 80,000 fans were in attendance at GAA headquarters - the biggest crowd in URC history - for only the third club rugby game ever to take place at the historic ground.
Off the back of that spectacle, Munster Rugby Hall of Famer Lenihan has proposed that a Munster-Leinster fixture be played in Cork every second year going forward.
Munster simply cannot compete with in the capacity and scale of Croker with the 25000 Thomond Park capacity.
The home of Cork GAA, on the other hand, holds 45000 and would offer a more impactful atmosphere for the provincial clash.
"As long as it’s cost neutral to Munster, I firmly believe the Leinster game should be staged in Pairc Ui Chaoimh, at the very least, on rotation every two years," Lenihan wrote in his Irish Examiner column.
"Munster need to show a bit more imagination and should be more than capable of netting, at a very minimum, €250,000 from the exercise, in tandem with reaching out to a wider audience.
"For years now Munster have operated on the principle that, “to the brave and the faithful nothing is impossible” — apart it seems from being able to host a competitive game at Pairc Ui Chaoimh."
Lenihan added that Munster missing out on the massive €2 million windfall from Saturday's derby in Croke Park was a huge loss for the province.
The only example organisers can draw from is the 2021 meeting of Munster and a South African XV, which was played in front of a sell-out crowd at the GAA ground.
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