Bledisloe Cup game at MCG

The All Blacks are poised to return to the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the spiritual home of Australian Rules Football, when the Bledisloe Cup series is expanded to three rugby tests next year.

Australia will host two Bledisloe tests next season and the revamped MCG, with a capacity of 100,000, is a far more lucrative proposition than Brisbane's Suncorp Stadium.

Sydney's 80,000-seat Telstra Stadium is the other test venue.

Thanks to extra ticket sales from staging a Bledisloe Cup at a redeveloped MCG, and corporate hospitality, the Australian Rugby Union believes it can make A$2 million ($2.21 million) more than if the match was held in Brisbane.

The move is also an attempt to appease Melburnians angry at missing out to Perth for the Super 14 expansion franchise.

The ARU is also aware that when Bledisloe Cup matches were staged at the MCG in 1997 and 1998, it prompted spectacular crowd figures.

A record crowd of 90,119 saw the All Blacks beat the Wallabies 33-18 in 1997, with the high number of visitors from New Zealand and interstate adding A$61 million to the Victorian economy.

- NZPA