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Perth to receive more international rugby

Heath Tessmann of the Western Force. (AAP Image/Tony McDonough)
Roar Rookie
28th July, 2015
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There is good news for the diehard supporters of Australian rugby in Perth, as the city will once again host Test match rugby by welcoming Los Pumas and the Springboks in 2016 and 2017 respectively.

While this is wonderful for Perth rugby fans, the bad news is that the games will be hosted at NIB Stadium. With a capacity of just over 20,000, it will be the smallest stadium to host Test rugby in Australia for quite some time.

However, the ARU have not been left with much choice to move the games away from Subiaco Oval. The poor attendances, due to a combination of bad luck and heavy rain that would have had Noah going for his boat occurring two years in a row, must have had the ARU scheduling manager’s head in his hands when reading the weather last September.

As a buyer of tickets at last year’s game, the undercover seating behind the goal was marked as unavailable on Ticketmaster.

A sell out? Well, obviously not.

Arriving at the game and sitting behind the goals whilst getting smashed in the face by horizontal rain is not the greatest feeling, but you are still at the rugby with a beer in hand.

Turns out, the seats undercover where not sold out they were just unavailable for sale. Surely, this must of cost the ARU a good number of patrons, who instead enjoyed it from their arm chair at home.

So onto 2018, the year that the new 60,000 Perth Stadium will be completed, with the widest seats in Australia and each one sporting it’s very own cup holder. All complete with free Wi-Fi, new big screens and undercover seating, but most importantly, the moveable seating that will put fans closer to the rugby action.

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What better way to stage rugby’s first Test in the new stadium then for the Wallabies to host the All Blacks. With Perths’ large New Zealand expat population, the game would bring much needed interest in rugby back to life for Perth.

On the back of this game, you could see the Springboks playing at the stadium the year after and hopefully, Test match could say good bye to the NIB Stadium.

Test match rugby should not be played in stadiums of 20 000 thousand people, lets bring back some pride in the game.

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