The South Africans bumped it up. Also worrying is how the Scottish derby had a bigger attendance than the two Welsh ones combined.
I think there has to be some understanding about the context of these attendances. Wales have 4 pro teams and less population than Scotland, and a lot less than Ireland, SA and Italy.
12,000 at a game in Wales is good given the area covered, imagine there will be 10,000 for the scarlets next week as well. Cardiff has a population of 362,000, around 50,000 of those are students and there is a lot of competition for sport here. There are very well supported football and ice hockey teams, just to name two.
I don’t imagine the scarlets and ospreys would consider the dragons as a big derby either, so that turnout for the scarlets game isn’t too bad.
I think it’s more of a case of imagine what might be possible in terms of growth here if there were fewer issues with governance and club politics.
Cardiffrfcfans do some handy analysis around attendances for a lot of teams if anyone is interested:
Rugby statistics with a slant on professional rugby in Cardiff. Game data from Europe, America, Japan and the Southern Hemisphere featuring stats on Pro14, Top14, Top League, English Premiership and Super Rugby.
www.cardiffrfcfans.com
