France decamped from Sydney to Melbourne on Friday for their World Cup quarter-final against Ireland with a call from coach Bernard Laporte for the missing French fans to make themselves heard.
The French fear that Melbourne’s 56 000-capacity Docklands Stadium will be vastly more green than red, white and blue for their clash on Sunday.
The Irish fans have already excelled during the competition, none more so than in the final Pool A game when they nearly brought the roof at the Melbourne stadium down as their team ran the Wallabies close.
France, in contrast, have been playing away from home against crowd-pleasing underdogs Fiji and Japan. They also played before 78 000 fans against Scotland in Sydney, a city which has a substantial Scottish connection.
”Since the start of this competition, we have played in front of crowds that have been supporting our opponents,” Laporte said.
”That was already the case against Japan and against Fiji. You have to ask yourself, where are all the French fans?”
Irish counterpart Eddie O’Sullivan expressed concern that ticket sales in general had been sluggish in the Australian Rules headquarters ahead of the game.
”Tickets are fairly expensive for neutrals. I suppose that has impacted on the crowd to some degree,” he said.
”I was hoping we would get a lot of Australians along to support Ireland because I know we would be second favourites in Australia.
”We will still get good support, I’ve no doubt about that, but I don’t think will have the full stadium, going on the numbers at the moment, that we had last week, unfortunately.”
Laporte said that there would not be much to pick between the two sides as they knew each other’s style of play from annual encounters in the Six Nations tournament.
”They are a competitive side that nearly beat Australia,” he said.
”For the last few years it’s been — we win one they win one. They have great pack that can dominate in the line-outs and are good on the break. And they have two fly-halfs who know how to manage a game and are good kickers. They never give up.”
”They are a good side, but not as good as the English, but then again neither are we.”
Laporte has no injury worries ahead of the Ireland game with backup flyhalf Gerald Merceron recovering from a slight knee injury. – Sapa-AFP