TALKING POINT: Pop goes the Loftus hostility

It was just about the time when the momentum shift on Saturday at Loftus Versfeld felt real. Glasgow Warriors were getting on top, and the Bulls heads had dropped.

But in a moment they won a turnover penalty and kicked downfield to set up a lineout drive.

This was a moment where, in the past, the capacity crowd at Loftus would howl them on. They would make it feel in no uncertain terms that this was the point of no return.

The crowd would get behind them, reminding Glasgow that this was their fortress, their house and this was their team.

Instead, when the moment arrived it was greeted with an overzealous announcer trying to get the fans to sing along to a Coldplay song, holding their mobile phones in the air with the torch setting on.

It was a moment that captured just how wrong the entire entertainment debate about rugby matches had become.

In Super Rugby it was no surprise that the Australian Rugby Players Association one year voted Loftus Versfeld as the most hostile arena for a side to play in, in the competition.

The crowd, when they got vocal, when they got behind the Bulls, added the 16th man - the overused cliche that, along with the altitude and physicality of the Pretoria side, made them a massive challenge for any side coming to Loftus.

DROWNING OUT THE MOMENT

Even Schalk Burger, when chatting on SuperSport before the Loftus semifinal against Leinster, made the point of how intimidating certain songs were when played at the right time for opposition teams at crucial parts of the game.

But those days are long gone. And on Saturday, the moment was lost. Drowned out by the over-insistence on playing music whenever play stops (and even when play is on). And play it loud, drowning out stadium noise, drowning out atmosphere.

For some reason we’ve got to a point where rugby matches need to sound like nightclubs and a stadium vibe means the opposite of watching an actual match?

I know I might sound like someone who is out of date at the moment, but I’m coming from a rugby background and after almost 30 years covering rugby at Loftus Versfeld, know exactly how the crowd has influenced games before and been a booster for Bulls and Springboks sides in the past.

Look, I get it. To get fans to rugby games nowadays is not the same as in the past. Rugby bosses love to tell you they are in the business of entertainment and have to compete with the minimal disposable cash that people have in tough times.

It isn’t easy filling up stadiums in the current economic climate, and perhaps the Springbok test just before didn’t help, giving fans a long time to utilise the beer gardens and other facilities that were put on by the hosts for a great day of rugby.

But once they get into the stadium, entertaining music is a given. These days at Loftus the music overlaps when play is on, stadium announcers think they are the main attraction and are often competing with the actual game on at the moment.

PART OF THE EXPERIENCE, NOT THE MAIN SHOW

Stadium entertainment is an important part of the whole game experience, and I’m not advocating for an extreme version where fans aren’t entertained during a game. Rugby needs the crowds and it needs the experience to be good.

But there was a reason that Leon Schuster wrote his classic song years ago about a rampant Bulls side at Loftus Versfeld, asking if you’ve ever been to Loftus when its’ full and it is rough (that’s a bad translation, I know).

And it isn’t to say that the Bulls would have won the game, or the crowd cost them their chance. They were beaten by a better side on the night and Franco Smith’s side were physically and tactically superior.

Yet they could have used that 16th man at critical times and they could have used the crowd behind them.

When the stadium announcer finally woke up to the fact that the Bulls needed their crowd in the dying moments, it was too late.

The home ground advantage had been drowned out by another pop hit for the 78 minutes before that.

It may have had people dancing and singing along, but it did the rugby no justice.

It is a fine line, but after all, to quote a guy who knows a thing or two about rugby and winning games, shouldn’t the main thing be the main thing.

Loftus Versfeld missed a trick on Saturday in their extreme obsession to entertain a capacity crowd.

And in those moments they killed the fortress tag that Loftus had for so many years.