Rugby News

Irish football fans in Poland are getting a lot of positive press but some of those down in New Zealand for the rugby have been coming to the attention of the authorities.

Watching Ireland’s 22-19 defeat to New Zealand in Christchurch on Saturday morning was gut-wrenching. But for the fact it was 10am, and I was working, I would have reached for a beer to try and numb the pain of getting so close to a famous first victory over the All Blacks.

Any Irish fans lucky enough to live in New Zealand, or to be down there for the tour, didn’t have to worry about that so they could get stuck into the local brew. Problem is that a few Irish indulged a little too heavily before kick-off and they were refused admission to the stadium.

According to a report on a New Zealand news site, 30 people were refused entry to the game, while a further 16 were ejected during the match.

Exact numbers for how many of those ejected were Irish aren’t reported but it sounds like most of those who failed to see out the 80 minutes were from these shores.

The report quotes Senior Sergeant Scott Banfield on the night’s activities.

"I'm not picking on the Irish, but a lot of the people that were ejected and removed and caused some problems were wearing green and gold, so one can assume they were supporting the Irish."

Sergeant Banfield added some more info on the problems they encountered with some fans.

"They're too intoxicated, we know what trouble they're going to cause in the stadium. Stadium staff intervened early by reducing the amount of alcohol that could be served shortly after kick-off which I believe had a positive effect. If that hadn't occurred then we may have had some more problems."

That they had to reduce the amount of booze on offer just after kick-off is a sign that things must have been bad but the Sergeant left the best until last as he told us about an incident we didn’t know about, a half-time, female, Irish streaker. Well at least he thinks she was Irish.

"She came from the Irish part of the east stand where they had their green and gold flags. Obviously she wasn't wearing anything so I couldn't tell which team she supported."

We have yet to see any pictures or video of the incident but trust us, we're looking.