england-rugby-catherine-trigg.jpg   Official England rugby replica shirts sold out early, because rugby chiefs were expecting England to lose!  Which of course, they did, but not when the Rugby Football Union thought they would.  The RFU underestimated demand for the shirts when it placed its order at the end of last year because at that time England had suffered a humiliating defeat to Argentina and the England coach had been ignominiously dismissed.  

So the RFU commissioned Nike to make 20,000 shirts and a further 20,000 were ordered by high street retailers. All were sold by the semis.  It seems that originally, sports shops were wary about placing orders as England were tipped for an early exit from the World Cup.  But following the wins over Australia and then France in the semi-finals there was overwhelming demand for shirts. 

A Nike spokesman said, “This has been the most successful shirt we have sold through the RFU. The market for replica rugby shirts is not as developed or established as for football shirts. Retailers didn’t want to order a whole load of them before the World Cup and find themselves sitting on them afterwards.” 

Well they didn’t – they ran out of stock! 

On the other hand, Wales rugby fans are still able to buy replica playing shirts after their team’s miserable early exit, in Ireland there are plenty of leftover World Cup shirts. And in Australian replica shirts were halved in price after they were beaten by England in the quarter finals.

England Rugby team photograpy by Catherine Trigg, used under a creative commons attribution licence.