The Rugby World Cup is still a long way off, but the prospect of playing in the Millennium Stadium, Wembley Stadium and the Olympic Stadium should be enough to get Irish fans excited at this stage.
The competition organisers released the match schedule this morning and Irish fans planning on heading across the water to take it in will be delighted to know that our lads will be playing in the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff and the Olympic Stadium and Wembley Stadium in London during the pool stages.
As well as being able to attend games in stadiums of such calibre, the vast capacity of all three means that tickets won’t be as much of a problem as they would have been in some of the smaller venues.
Ireland will kick off their World Cup campaign against a qualifier from the Americas in the Millennium Stadium on September 19 2015, followed by a clash against a European qualifier in Wembley on September 27, a meeting with Italy in the Olympic Stadium on October 4 and what could be a crucial game against France in the Millennium Stadium on October 11.
The winners of Ireland’s pool will likely face Argentina in the quarter-finals, while if everything runs along predictable lines, the runners-up will have the ominous task of facing reigning World Champions the All-Blacks in the last eight. If that’s not an incentive to win the pool, we don’t know what is.
The Millennium Stadium, Wembley and the Olympic Stadium are amongst 13 match venues alongside Twickenham Stadium (London), Manchester City Stadium (Manchester), St James’ Park (Newcastle), Elland Road (Leeds), Leicester City Stadium (Leicester), Villa Park (Birmingham), Kingsholm Stadium (Gloucester), stadiummk (Milton Keynes), Brighton Community Stadium (Brighton) and Sandy Park (Exeter).
Twickenham and Millennium Stadium will host the four quarter-finals with Twickenham also set to host both semi-finals and the final on Halloween Night, October 31, meaning there’ll be more fireworks than usual going off around London on the night.
Will Ireland be involved? We can dare to dream at this stage, but if you want to have a glance at the rest of the schedule and perhaps starting making plans for two years’ time, you can see the schedule in full here.
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