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Ryanair claim Leinster face away match flight chaos this winter

Leinster's Joe McCarthy (Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile via Getty Images)

Leo Cullen’s Leinster squad face a potential winter travel headache as restrictions on the number of flights to and from Dublin airport could force them to travel to upcoming matches in the UK and France from either Belfast, Cork or Shannon airports.

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The Irish province play at Bristol on December 8 and at La Rochelle on January 12 in the Investec Champions Cup, while they also have a February 14 game away to Ospreys in Swansea in the URC.

Leinster have struck a deal with Ryanair for charter flights to fly Cullen’s squad to and from these matches, but the Irish-headquartered airline fears the Irish Aviation Authority will reject their request for extra flight slots out of Dublin.

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A round trip by road from the Leinster training base at UCD to Belfast airport would be 372kms, to Shannon 468kms and Cork 544kms compared to just 34kms to Dublin airport.

The IAA have capped capacity at Dublin airport at 14.4million passengers from October to March, meaning additional landing and take-off slots must be applied for winter charter flights.

Fixture
Investec Champions Cup
Bristol
11:30
8 Dec 24
Leinster
All Stats and Data

Meanwhile, the Dublin Airport Authority said last week it expected to breach the passenger cap this year, with Dublin Airport handling 33 million passengers during 2024.

Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary met with Irish junior transport minister James Lawless on Wednesday regarding the passenger cap and he claimed their talks were unproductive, fuelling the possibility that Leinster will have to travel by bus from Dublin to either Belfast, Shannon or Cork to get to their games in England, France and Wales.

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Correspondence seen by RugbyPass read: “Ryanair, Europe’s No1 airline, has applied to the Irish Aviation Authority for extra slots for Leinster Rugby charters to Bristol, La Rochelle and Cardiff in December 2024 and January/February 2025, so that Leinster can fulfil their EPCR and URC fixtures.

“Ryanair has reached agreement with Leinster Rugby on these charters, subject to obtaining slots from the IAA. Ryanair expects the IAA to reject these slots as these are extra flights.”

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J
JW 1 hour ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Ok, managed to read the full article..

... New Zealand’s has only 14 and the professional season is all over within four months. In France, club governance is the responsibility of an independent organisation [the Ligue Nationale de Rugby or LNR] which is entirely separate from the host union [the Fédération Française de Rugby or FFR]. Down south New Zealand Rugby runs the provincial and the national game.

That is the National Provincial Championship, a competition of 14 representative union based teams run through the SH international window and only semi professional (paid only during it's running). It is run by NZR and goes for two and a half months.


Super Rugby is a competition involving 12 fully professional teams, of which 5 are of New Zealand eligibility, and another joint administered team of Pacific Island eligibility, with NZR involvement. It was a 18 week competition this year, so involved (randomly chosen I believe) extra return fixtures (2 or 3 home and away derbys), and is run by Super Rugby Pacific's own independent Board (or organisation). The teams may or may not be independently run and owned (note, this does not necessarily mean what you think of as 'privately owned').


LNR was setup by FFR and the French Government to administer the professional game in France. In New Zealand, the Players Association and Super Rugby franchises agreed last month to not setup their own governance structure for professional rugby and re-aligned themselves with New Zealand Rugby. They had been proposing to do something like the English model, I'm not sure how closely that would have been aligned to the French system but it did not sound like it would have French union executive representation on it like the LNR does.

In the shaky isles the professional pyramid tapers to a point with the almighty All Blacks. In France the feeling for country is no more important than the sense of fierce local identity spawned at myriad clubs concentrated in the southwest. Progress is achieved by a nonchalant shrug and the wide sweep of nuanced negotiation, rather than driven from the top by a single intense focus.

Yes, it is pretty much a 'representative' selection system at every level, but these union's are having to fight for their existence against the regime that is NZR, and are currently going through their own battle, just as France has recently as I understand it. A single focus, ala the French game, might not be the best outcome for rugby as a whole.


For pure theatre, it is a wonderful article so far. I prefer 'Ntamack New Zealand 2022' though.

The young Crusader still struggles to solve the puzzle posed by the shorter, more compact tight-heads at this level but he had no problem at all with Colombe.

It was interesting to listen to Manny during an interview on Maul or Nothing, he citied that after a bit of banter with the All Black's he no longer wanted one of their jersey's after the game. One of those talks was an eye to eye chat with Tamaiti Williams, there appear to be nothing between the lock and prop, just a lot of give and take. I thought TW angled in and caused Taylor to pop a few times, and that NZ were lucky to be rewarded.

f you have a forward of 6ft 8ins and 145kg, and he is not at all disturbed by a dysfunctional set-piece, you are in business.

He talked about the clarity of the leadership that helped alleviate any need for anxiety at the predicaments unfolding before him. The same cannot be said for New Zealand when they had 5 minutes left to retrieve a match winning penalty, I don't believe. Did the team in black have much of a plan at any point in the game? I don't really call an autonomous 10 vehicle they had as innovative. I think Razor needs to go back to the dealer and get a new game driver on that one.

Vaa’i is no match for his power on the ground. Even in reverse, Meafou is like a tractor motoring backwards in low gear, trampling all in its path.

Vaa'i actually stops him in his tracks. He gets what could have been a dubious 'tackle' on him?

A high-level offence will often try to identify and exploit big forwards who can be slower to reload, and therefore vulnerable to two quick plays run at them consecutively.

Yes he was just standing on his haunches wasn't he? He mentioned that in the interview, saying that not only did you just get up and back into the line to find the opposition was already set and running at you they also hit harder than anything he'd experienced in the Top 14. He was referring to New Zealands ultra-physical, burst-based Super style of course, which he was more than a bit surprised about. I don't blame him for being caught out.


He still sent the obstruction back to the repair yard though!

What wouldn’t the New Zealand rugby public give to see the likes of Mauvaka and Meafou up front..

Common now Nick, don't go there! Meafou showed his Toulouse shirt and promptly got his citizenship, New Zealand can't have him, surely?!?


As I have said before with these subjects, really enjoy your enthusiasm for their contribution on the field and I'd love to see more of their shapes running out for Vern Cotter and the like styled teams.

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