Irish rugby fans scramble to swap quarter-final tickets By Leanna Byrne

BBC News NI Published duration 17 October 2019

image copyright AFP

Many Irish rugby fans hoping to get tickets for Saturday's quarter-final against New Zealand have found themselves scrambling to get tickets.

Fans had expected Ireland to beat Japan and qualify for the Rugby World Cup's knock-out stage as winners of pool A.

But instead of winning their pool and going on to face South Africa, the Irish will now face the All Blacks.

Now rugby fans are flocking to social media looking to swap their tickets for Saturday's fixture in Tokyo.

One ticket-trading event - being billed as "RWC 2019 Qf2/Qf4 Ticket Exchange" on Facebook - is being held near Asakusa station in Tokyo on Friday.

But World Rugby has advised fans to use its official ticket site to swap or resell tickets.

Jack Danaher, 28, an Irish fan from Dublin living in London, is arriving in Japan on Friday night.

He said he had assumed that Ireland would win its group and so he bought tickets for Sunday's quarter-final in Tokyo, which now features South Africa and Japan.

He has arranged to exchange his ticket for an Ireland vs New Zealand ticket at a face-to-face exchange in a Tokyo stewhouse with a Japanese fan, Tomoyuki, who he found through Facebook.

'People are inundated'

But finding someone with whom to swap tickets was not easy, he said.

"The posts on any Facebook ticket swap groups are almost entirely Irish fans looking to trade their South Africa vs Japan tickets for Ireland vs New Zealand ones," said Mr Danaher.

"Any people who post looking for the other way around are generally inundated with tens of messages immediately.

"That being said, there are some very benevolent Japanese people who have joined these Facebook groups and are then reaching out to their Japanese friends, who either aren't on Facebook or don't speak English, to see if anyone is looking to swap."

Mr Danaher's tickets are category C tickets, priced at £143.50 (20,000 yen) each.

"Tomoyuki has category D tickets [which are less expensive] but in the spirit of camaraderie and support that has been the hallmark of this process we just agreed to do a straight swap," he said.

image copyright Bernard Loughran image caption Bernard Loughran and his family cheered on Ireland in Hiroshima

Bernard Loughran, 31, has been in Japan for 12 days.

The Dubliner said he bought tickets for £250, assuming Ireland would win the group.

But by half time in the Scotland vs Japan game he knew he was going to have a problem.

"I joined as many Facebook ticket exchange groups as possible and started looking for swaps," he said.

"By the following morning it was like 100-to-1 Irish to other fans, trying to swap - it was all buyers no sellers."

Luckily Mr Loughran had a Japanese connection.

"When I was on Erasmus in Salamanca about 10 years ago I lived my first semester with a Japanese guy," he told BBC News NI.

"I reached out to him and asked was there some sort of ticket exchange site in Japan in Japanese he could help with as all the groups I was in were English speaking and were full with mainly Irish.

"He posted on his Facebook to all his friends first and after 24 hours had two friends reach out to him willing to swap with me."

'I'll go melt some heads'

Mark Byrne is from Saintfield in County Down and is living in San Francisco.

The 36-year-old has been in Japan for two weeks and had been waiting for the group stages to finish before he got his ticket.

image copyright Mark Byrne image caption Mark Byrne and friends have had fun away from the rugby in Japan - such as by driving karts through the streets of Toyko

Even though he does not have a ticket to swap he is optimistic he will get to the game on Saturday.

"I'm just going to go to Toyko and hedge my bets," said Mr Byrne.

"You have to keep your spirits high.