Newcastle Falcons are considering switching a home Heineken Cup quarter-final to St James' Park if they reach the last eight of the competition.
The Falcons, who are seven points clear at the top of Pool Five with only two games left, admit their Kingston Park ground may be stretched by the demand for tickets if they were to reach the knock-out stage for the time in their history.
So club chairman Dave Thompson has revealed that a switch to Newcastle United's 52,000 all-seater stadium could be on the cards if they were to draw an English rival in the quarter-finals.
"We have a lot of work to do just to reach that stage, but if we get a home quarter-final against Leicester, Gloucester or even Munster then it would be a possibility we would look at. We could probably fill
Kingston Park twice over for those games," said Thompson.
That would be just the latest sign of the growing popularity of the Heineken Cup with Leinster staging all home games at Lansdowne Road, Edinburgh at Murrayfield and Harlequins switching their final pool game against Munster to Twickenham.