THE HERALD REPORTS

Murrayfield poised for record crowd figure
KEVIN FERRIE November 22 2006
After poor attendances for the opening two Bank of Scotland Corporate autumn Tests, Saturday\'s much-anticipated meeting between Scotland and Australia appears poised to attract a record crowd to Murrayfield.
In contrast to the message released last week by the sport\'s governing body, attacking the failure of the nation\'s clubs to support international fixtures, the SRU congratulated itself yesterday on getting its \"pricing strategy right\" in outlining how well tickets have sold for the impending visit of the Wallabies.
At half-time during last weekend\'s Test meeting with the Pacific Islanders, officials distributed the attendance figure of 19,055, drawing a celebrated former Scotland captain to muse: \"I wonder what sort of statement we\'ll get from Dee McIntosh [the SRU\'s head of communications] this time and who will get the blame.\"
That was a response to the claim from Murrayfield, three days earlier, that a combination of the clubs\' unwillingness to avoid fixture clashes with the Test and low sales of tickets through rugby clubs had contributed to the dismal turn out of 12,128 for the previous Saturday\'s meeting – the first autumn international – with Romania.
However, yesterday\'s much more upbeat announcement stated that 56,000 tickets have already been sold for Saturday\'s match. That is very much within striking range of the 62,089 spectators that watched the Australians beat Scotland in Edinburgh in 2000, the record attendance for the fixture.
\"Ticket sales are heading towards nearly double the crowd that came to Murrayfield the last time we played Australia in 2004,\" Gordon McKie, the SRU\'s chief executive pointed out yesterday.
\"[That] confirms we\'ve got our pricing strategy right for the autumn Tests.\"

This article was posted on 22-Nov-2006, 08:28 by Hugh Barrow.