Guest Blogger: PRO12 enjoys increased attendance

Guest blogger The Scribbler looks at attendance's for the weekend in the PRO 12.

Cardiff Blues enjoy increased attendance

Those at the Cardiff Arms Park on Friday night witnessed something special. Coming in on the back of ten consecutive defeats to Glasgow Warriors in the Guinness Pro12, Cardiff Blues managed to break the hoodoo. 

Glasgow, with a number of changes from the team that crushed 2016 Champions Connacht and then finalists Leinster the week after, left the Cardiff Arms Park with a valuable losing bonus point, as Cardiff picked up 5 points. The score was 23-19 to the hosts care of a late Steven Shingler penalty. 

Perhaps the biggest talking point going into the game was the attendance.

If you included the figures for Judgement Day (68,262) then Cardiff Blues attendance averaged out to 13,337 last season.

However, take that bumper crowd out and the reality is that the Arms Park average crowd was made up of around 5177 spectators last season. For their season opener against Scottish rivals Edinburgh, only 4807 went through the turnstiles.

Having dispatched of Edinburgh comfortably, 34-16 and then backed that up by beating Munster away from home by 23-24, fans of the capital region had reason to be positive. 

When you include the fact that the game was not on TV (it didn't look like much of a contest to broadcasters before the season started) and Glasgow flying high and scoring tries you can understand why this game was so highly anticipated.

On the night, 8024 turned out. In Cardiff Blues terms, that's a good crowd of late. Promisingly, their faith was repaid with a thrilling match, crucially clinching the win and hopefully inspiring those lapsed fans to return to the Arms Park soon. 

By no means does that mean that Cardiff Blues will enjoy such crowds all season, but with the team finally playing some exciting rugby and looking as though they can threaten for the title, fans have good reason to get down to the ground.

The players will now hope that last night was a stepping stone. First and foremost in terms of their performance, but also in terms of the crowd, they will hope that figures only go up from here. 

The atmosphere in the ground was electric, whether fans were chanting 'Cardiff' or 'Blues', it didn't matter. It was a fresh of breath air in the Guinness Pro12, a chance to get away from the usual moans and groans about 'affinity' and 'real regions' that Welsh Rugby can so often bring. 

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