LEINSTER HAVE SOLD around 23,000 tickets so far for this Friday’s Champions Cup quarter-final against the Leicester Tigers [KO 8pm] at the Aviva Stadium.

The Dublin venue will operate with a reduced capacity of 27,000 for this game, rather than its full capacity of just under 52,000.

With only a six-day turnaround from Leinster’s round-of-16 win over Ulster last weekend at the same venue and with the game taking place at 8pm on Good Friday, the decision has been made to keep the upper tier of the Aviva Stadium closed.

English club Leicester have taken roughly 500 tickets for the game, returning the rest of their allocation, with the short timeframe making it difficult for more of their fans to travel to Dublin.

Leinster are very hopeful of reaching the 27,000 mark before kick-off on Friday, which would mean having roughly an extra 8,500 supporters than would have fitted into their usual home venue of the RDS.

Those potential extra ticket sales make moving the quarter-final to the Aviva more financially rewarding for Leinster. Having the upper tier of the stadium open would have meant considerably more expense for the province.

Leinster are 15-point favourites against Leicester and if they advance into the semi-finals, they will once again have home advantage at the Aviva Stadium on the weekend of 28/29/30 April.

The Champions Cup final has already been confirmed for the Dublin venue on Saturday 20 May.

Leinster and Leicester clashed in last season’s quarter-finals too, with the Irish province winning 23-14 at Welford Road.

The winners of this Friday’s tie will meet the victor of the Toulouse v Sharks quarter-final, which takes place in France on Saturday afternoon.

Funnily enough, Leinster also met Toulouse in last season’s semis, winning 40-17 at the Aviva before losing the final to La Rochelle in Marseille.