Slow to buy, but city will step up to support its games, says mayor

Martin Snedden. Photo / Mark Mitchell

It's been criticised as one of the centres lagging in its support of the Rugby World Cup - yet Rotorua will rise up and rally to its three games, the city's mayor believes.

World Cup boss Martin Snedden singled out Rotorua as one city that needed to "move a bit quicker", when discussing ticket sales with TV3's John Campbell this week.

"Are there a couple of centres you look at and think, come on, buy some more tickets," Campbell asked.

"We've always understood that people come at this a bit late in some places," Snedden responded.

"Now Auckland is galvanised, Wellington is going strong, there are a whole lot of other places around New Zealand going strong ... we need Rotorua probably to move just a bit quicker into this."

As of Wednesday, only 31,800 of the 76,500 tickets for the three cup games at Rotorua International Stadium had been snapped up.

The most popular match was Ireland's clash with Russia on September 25, with 17,600 of 25,500 tickets gone.

But only 6900 had been booked for the September 15 showdown between Samoa and Namibia - Campbell opined that it would not be expected to be a "classic game of rugby" - and sales for Namibia's match with Fiji five days earlier were little better, with 7300 tickets sold.

But Mayor Kevin Winters, who was "surprised" Mr Snedden had singled out Rotorua, said he was confident local sales would grow.

"I think Rotorua people will rally up and get behind it ..."

Yesterday, the mayor officially welcomed the Samoan side to the city amid much fanfare.

Most residents the Herald polled in the city's main street agreed.

"This town is gearing up - you'd have to be either blind or deaf if you thought there wasn't any excitement happening here at the moment," local Jack White said.

Ryan Pollard, whose menswear store was among many shops in Tutanekei St flying cup colours, said: "As far as I can see, the town is getting in right behind it."

But 88-year-old rugby fan Roland Burling, despite describing the city's stadium as "one of the best paddocks in the country", won't be bothering going to any of the games.

"The TV's there and I'll be watching it on that.

"If we had more prominent countries there would be a bit more excitement about it."