This is a first since the start of the Top 14 rugby season: Stade Toulousain will play in the afternoon! Match at 3 p.m. this Saturday in Brive, for the 7th day. The Stadium played its first six matches in the evening at 9 p.m., whether on Saturday or Sunday. Question of TV programming, to have a maximum audience in prime time.
This match at 3 p.m. is life-changing for Jean-Marc Arnaud, the president of Eight, one of the Stade Toulousain supporters’ clubs: “it is already much more practical to organize. We leave in the morning, and we don’t come back very very late“On the other hand, at night, it’s more complicated, especially for away matches: “as soon as we start to do 300 or 400 kilometers, we come back at 3 or 4 in the morning”. Saturday at 9 p.m., it’s still playable “but on Sunday evening, with work the next day, it’s impossible“. Ditto for the youngest, who have school on Monday morning.
It’s the other side of the coin, to support a great club. But for Julie Argiolas, the vice-president of the Red Salopettes, too many matches on Sunday at 9 p.m. also means cutting yourself off from a certain, rather family-oriented audience: “when you are a child, you get to know the game and the fervor of the stadium. The fact of not being able to take the children, it will perhaps be less supporters later”.
And even for home matches, some don’t feel like they’re fully experiencing the thing, while others deprive themselves of coming, downright: “I don’t deprive myself, but I don’t take advantage of the aftermath. -match, because you have to go home to work the next day.
But match at 3 p.m. or not, some will not make the trip to Brive this Saturday… because of the shortage of gasoline.