Yesterday's Currie Cup semi-final was yet another indication of just how passionate people in this city are about their rugby.
The game was a sell-out, and by all accounts Western Province might have had a chance of packing out the 68,000 soon to be completed World Cup stadium at Green Point had it been available and they been willing to make a break with tradition.
But as the 2009 local season draws to a close and we go into the inevitable period of reflection and post-mortem, it is hard to buy into the line being peddled by the people at SA Rugby that this year showed that the sport is recession proof.
There was a press release issued from SA Rugby headquarters the other day in which chief executive Andy Marinos celebrated the highest attendance figures for Springbok matches since 2004. I am more supportive of Marinos than many are, but it was a bit disingenious of him if you consider this was the year of a British and Irish Lions tour.
Surely this year can only really be compared to 1997, when the Lions last visited here, and not to the other seasons where Tri-Nations games are preceded by matches against usually under-strength minor nations and are played in what could be described as a warm-up atmosphere.
For me it was disturbing that this season I attended two top Test matches at King's Park which were both far from full.
The one was against the British and Irish Lions, the other was against the All Blacks.
Sorry, but I never thought I would see the day when the Boks would play those opponents at that venue and there would be empty seating.
It was a similar story for the All Black fixture in Bloemfontein, where up until the day of the game the local union was bending itself into all sorts of contortions to sell tickets.
Even Newlands, which always seems a guaranteed sell-out for even a minor Test match, only started to gather momentum for the final home Tri-Nations fixture against Australia once it became clear the Boks were picking up an impressive head of steam. The only other sell-out was the second Test against the Lions at Loftus.
If you just read the press release and did not dig a bit deeper and subject it to proper analysis, you were left with the impression that the Bok achievements on the field were matched by unprecedented public interest in terms of bums on seats.
This was not the case, however, as my abiding memory of the most recent Lions series was being confronted by the sight of a sea of red when I arrived at the Loftus press box.
And it was a similar story in Durban and in the final Test in Johannesburg.
At least half those crowds were made up of Lions supporters, which meant, as pointed out in one of these columns a couple of months ago, there were as many as 35,000 people who would normally attend each of these games who were absent.
And the Tri-Nations attendances suggested many of those who had their habit of attending Test matches broken opted to stay away again.
The complaints about the pricing of the tickets for the Lions series have been well documented, but that is not really what this column is about.
The real concern is a perception that was fuelled by the empty spaces at the Griquas season finalé against the Sharks in Kimberley last week.
It was the closest Griquas had come in ages to qualifying for a semi-final, and yet their relatively small stadium was not full.
And yesterday's attendance at the Sharks-Cheetahs game in Durban was also not that impressive for a semi-final involving a team that so many Durbanites are passionate about.
It was a similar story in the closing stages of the Super 14, when the Sharks were playing for a place in the semis, although the big derby against the Bulls did bring the punters out in their droves.
And there will probably be a full house where-ever the final is played simply because of the magnitude of the occasion.
But in this heady year of onfield achievement for local teams, and for that read Bulls and Boks, has it led to an increase in the number of people who want to attend games?
Outside of the Cape and the passionate army of fans who follow the Bulls, it is debatable.