Hallowed turf hard to leave

Rugby, argued British and Irish Lions manager Gerald Davies during his brilliant playing career, should be a game of calculated risks.

Cardiff Blues, direct descendant of the club Davies once captained, take an off-field calculated risk on Sunday by forsaking their usual ground to entertain Gloucester in a Heineken Cup tie at the Millennium Stadium.

It will allow more of their fans – far from incidentally bringing in much more money – to watch than is possible at the 13,000 capacity Arms Park.

The adjustment is minimal. The Millennium Stadium backs on to the Arms Park. They share some entrances. Yet, for a match that will give the winner a clear early advantage in Pool 6 after both won last week, it is a risk. By moving even a few yards, Cardiff are giving up an important element of home advantage, the comfort of familiarity with a space that is exclusively their own.

Cardiff are coping with a difficulty common in rugby as crowds outgrow small grounds. Wasps will play Leinster at Twickenham rather than Wycombe in January while Stade Français will cross Paris from the familiar confines of the Stade Jean-Bouin to entertain Harlequins at the capacious Stade de France in early December.

Toulouse routinely take big games to the city’s football ground while Biarritz have crossed the Spanish border, staging Heineken quarter-finals in San Sebastian rather than their Parc Aguilera, an extremely tight fit at its advertised 13,400 capacity.

Such homes from home have a mixed record. Cardiff lost to Leicester last time they used the Millennium. Wasps have a spectacular record at Twickenham and beat Munster when they used Coventry’s Ricoh Stadium last year but the losing bonus Munster obtained won them the pool.

Leicester lost a Heineken semi to Toulouse down the road at Walker Stadium, while Biarritz’s happy relationship with San Sebastian took a sticky turn when unfancied Northampton ejected them a couple of seasons ago.

All of these matches might have been lost on more familiar grounds. Ground switches inevitably occur against the strongest and most attractive opponents, teams that might beat you anywhere. At international level, Ireland had no option but to move to Croke Park while Lansdowne Road is rebuilt and are fortunate to play in a magnificent stadium that is also a national shrine. They usually lose to France. Yet the change of venue possibly cost them their best recent chance of a Grand Slam when France won the first rugby Test at Croke Park last year.

One of the most cherished of all home grounds stages its last match next Friday when Llanelli play Bristol in the EDF Energy Cup at Stradey Park. The timing is slightly unlucky, exactly bisecting the most evocative anniversaries in Stradey history – the defeat of Australia on 17th October 1908 that inspired the “Who beat the Wallabies?” verse in club anthem Sospan Fach and the still warmly remembered victory over the All Blacks on October 31 1972. Its five international matches saw Wales avoid defeat for the first time against England and beat Ireland to clinch their first ever Triple Crown, plus the World Cup victory that launched Argentina into the upper echelons.

Days such as these and players such as Albert Jenkins, Phil Bennett and Ray Gravell will be warmly remembered on an emotional night at the most passionately Welsh of all rugby venues. The move to new purpose-built Parc y Scarlets is part of a remarkable wave of Welsh stadium building that has consigned the former National Stadium and Swansea’s Vetch Field to history, with Cardiff’s Ninian Park soon to follow. Only Newport Gwent Dragons, at Rodney Parade, remain in unreconstructed surroundings.

The downside of new grounds, however superior their facilities, is the loss of shared memory. Llanelli’s challenge, when Parc y Scarlets opens on Wednesday week with a Magner’s League game against Munster, is to create new memories and make the Parc a cauldron of bilingual fervour like Stradey.