Wallabies are more popular
Fri, 19 Sep 2008 10:22
Attendance figures for this year's Wallaby Tests in Australia have revealed the highest average crowd for home-based internationals since the World Cup was staged Down Under in 2003.
A total of 303,699 people attended the six home internationals - against Ireland, France (2), New Zealand (2) and South Africa for an average crowd of 50,617.
The average was up almost nine percent on last year's average Test attendance of 46,620.
The total number of fans was also the highest for a domestic Test season since the World Cup.
"We are not getting carried away, but these figures are a sign that we are heading in the right direction," said ARU Managing Director and CEO John O'Neill.
"The Bledisloe Cup match in Brisbane was a sellout, we came close to posting the house full sign in Perth for the Springboks Test and we had almost 80,000 to the Bledisloe Cup Test in Sydney.
"Recording our highest average crowd since 2003 is encouraging but there is still work to do.
"We want full stadia every time the Wallabies play in this country and that is certainly not the case around the inbound Tests in June."
The average Test crowds for matches involving Australia, including World Cup 2003, have been - season by season:
2003 – 59,498
2004 – 48,613
2005 – 50,504
2006 – 50,100
2007 – 46,620
2008 – 50,617
