Are 4G Artificial Pitches the way forward for the Northern Hemisphere?

Both Saracens and the Cardiff Blues have them (and I know one of the League sides as well) and from the accounts I've heard and the games I've seen at Sarries (on the telly!) it does appear to offer a true playing surfice enabling a fast ball in hand quality contest which I think is good for all aspects of the game (though there maybe questions marks about the actually pitch size at Barnett as it sits within a running track?)

Given the issues forever with the restricted daylight (roof) and subsequent limited grass growth at the Millennium Stadium, and the current microbe infestation and occasional weather conditions north of the border.....surely the way forward is artificial turf?

The spectacle will undoubtedly improve plus the stadium and pitch useage will increase 10 fold allowing the local communities the use of fantasic facilities.

Is this a no brainer?

Whats your thoughts?

I play football twice a week on such a surface, albeit an old one, and I have to say I'm not a fan. It's great for football, having an even surface for passing with no bobbles, but not for rugby. My lower back hurts after a game, and any slide tackle leaves your leg pretty shredded. No doubt these will be better quality pitches than the one I've played on, if someone has actually played on Sarries' it would be good to hear from them, but they're a nightmare in my opinion. It's coming from the money-men: no more cancelled or postponed matches means no more lost revenue. The conditions should be taken into account in rugby, we shouldn't try to sanitise the sport, it's an outdoor game.

The Ospreys (and obviously Swansea football) have been playing on a semi-synthetic pitch for years now with no adverse affects. Not sure how a half and half pitch works, but maybe this sort of compromise between the traditional and the completely synthetic could be the way forward?

The one drawback is the bounce of the ball behaves quite differently on those artificial pitches

Griff wrote:The Ospreys (and obviously Swansea football) have been playing on a semi-synthetic pitch for years now with no adverse affects. Not sure how a half and half pitch works, but maybe this sort of compromise between the traditional and the completely synthetic could be the way forward?

Thinking about it London Irish play at the Madstad which i'm sure is a combination of the synthetic and natural and it always appears a good pitch - actually I think James O'Connor spoke highly of it on his debut the other week.

If they can grow grass in London and Dublin, then how come they cant grow grass in Cardiff?

aucklandlaurie wrote:
If they can grow grass in London and Dublin, then how come they cant grow grass in Cardiff?

Something to do with the shape of the stadium. Blocks sunlight or something.

Griff wrote:

aucklandlaurie wrote:
If they can grow grass in London and Dublin, then how come they cant grow grass in Cardiff?

Something to do with the shape of the stadium. Blocks sunlight or something.

The roofs aperture is too small meaning insufficient light comes through.

Maybe they could put some dirty graet mirrors on the aperture, and let the sunshine in.

aucklandlaurie wrote:
Maybe they could put some dirty graet mirrors on the aperture, and let the sunshine in.

Surely you'd want the mirrors to be sparkly clean to reflect the optimum level of sunny day light - and I like the use of the grate functionality, it is one big fiery ball thing after all.

what about a big dirty satellite from space that reflects sunlight like in the James bond film with helle berry in  

Pitch at the millstad is a disgrace. But that's what happens when you have a pitch on pallets. We should go for one like the ospreys have, half n half.

But half and half pitch can't be taken out for the summer pop concerts. Imagine what all those feet and spilt beer would do during a concert to their lovely turf which should recover during the summer months..................

They have massive infra red lights over the pitch during the week to try and keep the grass alive, as the roof overhang doesn' t allow much daylight in the winter gloom to reach the pitch. whoops. must designed it in the summer.

I think the Blues are running a trial for the Millenium Stadium pitch. Blues will be putting hospitality tents up on it during the 6 nations and earn a shedload. Hopefully all that corporate beer money will pay for a new tighthead. Or a new coach. And I don't mean a bus.

Bluedragon wrote:But half and half pitch can't be taken out for the summer pop concerts. Imagine what all those feet and spilt beer would do during a concert to their lovely turf which should recover during the summer months..................

They have massive infra red lights over the pitch during the week to try and keep the grass alive, as the roof overhang doesn' t allow much daylight in the winter gloom to reach the pitch. whoops. must designed it in the summer.

I think the Blues are running a trial for the Millenium Stadium pitch. Blues will be putting hospitality tents up on it during the 6 nations and earn a shedload. Hopefully all that corporate beer money will pay for a new tighthead. Or a new coach. And I don't mean a bus.

Have you seen the ground under a tent?

Waikato Stadium has been half grass half artificial for blydy years.

If the MS was a dedicated turf stadium there would be no problems at all that's what most seem to forget. Unfortunately the base of the MS is concrete so many other functions can be held there, e.g. One Direction concerts etc.

It has nothing to do with the big ball of fire above but the boxes of crap that are carted in for what is considered the lesser evens the Welsh Rugby games.

Once again as a Welshman a pathetic money spinning deal the WRU enrolled into.

kingelderfield wrote:

Griff wrote:The Ospreys (and obviously Swansea football) have been playing on a semi-synthetic pitch for years now with no adverse affects. Not sure how a half and half pitch works, but maybe this sort of compromise between the traditional and the completely synthetic could be the way forward?

Thinking about it London Irish play at the Madstad which i'm sure is a combination of the synthetic and natural and it always appears a good pitch - actually I think James O'Connor spoke highly of it on his debut the other week.

Here's the story of the MadStad pitch...

http://thetilehurstend.sbnation.com/2011/06/16/field-of-dreams-the-story-of-the-playing-surface-of-the-madejski-stadium/

It is an excellent surface, as is the one at Arsenal's Emirates Stadium, which uses the same technology.

Personally I think the 4G artificial pitches are brilliant for so many reasons.

aucklandlaurie wrote:

Bluedragon wrote:But half and half pitch can't be taken out for the summer pop concerts. Imagine what all those feet and spilt beer would do during a concert to their lovely turf which should recover during the summer months..................

They have massive infra red lights over the pitch during the week to try and keep the grass alive, as the roof overhang doesn' t allow much daylight in the winter gloom to reach the pitch. whoops. must designed it in the summer.

I think the Blues are running a trial for the Millenium Stadium pitch. Blues will be putting hospitality tents up on it during the 6 nations and earn a shedload. Hopefully all that corporate beer money will pay for a new tighthead. Or a new coach. And I don't mean a bus.

Have you seen the ground under a tent?

The Blues have a fully synthetic 4g pitch though, so shouldn't be a problem.

Seems 4g does not exist--

http://www.softsurfaces.co.uk/blog/surface-products-types-options-texture-feel/4g-grass-football-pitch-sports-surfacing-synthetic-turf-carpet


Spooky

Was speaking to Alex Grove recently and was asking him about what the pitch was like when he played against Sarries. He was all for it, he said it felt just the same as playing on grass, no scrapes or anything when you hit the surface and the pitch still took studs! Definitely all for it in Scotland as would help prevent all the winter call offs due to frozen pitches.
We have a 4G training pitch at my club and seems to be very good, very similar to playing on a normal pitch but the benefits are that obviously the conditions are guaranteed to be good all year round. Far more enjoyable to play in and also for spectators.

Doesn't Twickenham use a half and half surface?

Majestic, I thought England still had the original 'cabbage patch' which is the same turf laid when the stadium opened 100 years ago?

Are artificial pitches the way forward or is talk of them just bad excuses for bad field management

Anyone who saw the France vs NZ game recently would have bemoaned the state of the pitch. It just cut up terribly which detracted from the game. Anything to fix this has to be good both in terms of the players safety and the viewing public.

Griff wrote:Majestic, I thought England still had the original 'cabbage patch' which is the same turf laid when the stadium opened 100 years ago?

I thought that Twickenham was turf but I am sure i read an article somewhere that the turf was now interwoven with synthetic grass. Will try and find the article I read.

http://www.scotsman.com/sport/rugby/latest/artificial-playing-surface-the-new-rugby-trend-1-2854758

Found the article which mentions Twickenham and also quite a few other pitches around the world.

Cheers Majestic. Interesting actually, as one of the Kiwi posters recently stated that he would deem the MS as the premier NH stadium, but not with the current pitch (hard to argue against that). But he said that instead he'd pick Twickers as it had such a good playing surface - or words to that affect. I wonder if he realised it was a half synthetic pitch. Could be the way forward.

I guess the difficult for the MS is that the synthetic fibres are interwoven with the natural grass -we've got very little to interweave the synthetic stuff with!

Things are bad when pitches need synthetic toupees to cover up the sparseness of real grass! Have yis no shame? Try regaine or just shave it all off.

Griff wrote:

aucklandlaurie wrote:

Bluedragon wrote:But half and half pitch can't be taken out for the summer pop concerts. Imagine what all those feet and spilt beer would do during a concert to their lovely turf which should recover during the summer months..................

They have massive infra red lights over the pitch during the week to try and keep the grass alive, as the roof overhang doesn' t allow much daylight in the winter gloom to reach the pitch. whoops. must designed it in the summer.

I think the Blues are running a trial for the Millenium Stadium pitch. Blues will be putting hospitality tents up on it during the 6 nations and earn a shedload. Hopefully all that corporate beer money will pay for a new tighthead. Or a new coach. And I don't mean a bus.

Have you seen the ground under a tent?

The Blues have a fully synthetic 4g pitch though, so shouldn't be a problem.

Its made entirely of plastic Auckland laurie. You could put anything over it and it will remain the same. thats the point. On grubber kicks the ball seems to bounce a bit lower on it. I was sort of hoping it would cannon right up in the air for comedy value but to my disappointment it has a reasonably regular bounce.

Bluedragon wrote:

Griff wrote:

aucklandlaurie wrote:

Bluedragon wrote:But half and half pitch can't be taken out for the summer pop concerts. Imagine what all those feet and spilt beer would do during a concert to their lovely turf which should recover during the summer months..................

They have massive infra red lights over the pitch during the week to try and keep the grass alive, as the roof overhang doesn' t allow much daylight in the winter gloom to reach the pitch. whoops. must designed it in the summer.

I think the Blues are running a trial for the Millenium Stadium pitch. Blues will be putting hospitality tents up on it during the 6 nations and earn a shedload. Hopefully all that corporate beer money will pay for a new tighthead. Or a new coach. And I don't mean a bus.

Have you seen the ground under a tent?

The Blues have a fully synthetic 4g pitch though, so shouldn't be a problem.

Its made entirely of plastic Auckland laurie. You could put anything over it and it will remain the same. thats the point. On grubber kicks the ball seems to bounce a bit lower on it. I was sort of hoping it would cannon right up in the air for comedy value but to my disappointment it has a reasonably regular bounce.

Perhaps therein lies the solution, why not put the Milenium stadium over it?

On grubber kicks a rugby ball will always sit up on the 4th tumble so long as the top of the foot is flush against half the height of the ball when kicked.

Bluedragon, it does sound very impressive though.

aucklandlaurie wrote:
Bluedragon, it does sound very impressive though.

I think it will be the future for many pro rugby teams. Cost £400K and will last for 5 years.The cost will surely drop as technology improves. But its is multi surface, so can be trained on, no loss of revenue due to waterlogging etc. And for the Blues, the hospitality aspect during the 6 nations.

And its got nice colours on it and different colours over the touchline so you can see when the ball goes out of play. Unless you are a ref.

Any more thoughts on this, now that Saracens have had over a year on their artificial pitch? I've also heard that the Ricoh arena is planned to be artificial - so the topic is current again.

There's some discussion here:
http://www.therugbyblog.com/one-year-on-how-has-saracens-artificial-pitch-changed-the-game

Would Saracens fans recommend artificial pitches to the rest of the rugby world?

Do you hoover artificial pitches rather than mow them?

If so, Artificial pitches can f**k right off!

Maybe rugby should go like Tennis and have a a variety of surfaces to play on that would be global specific. Europe could keep with the genuine grass. USA could have artificial. SA could have clay. New Zealand could have clouds..... they play such Heavenly stuff....

And Schools could have tarmac!!!!!

And Scotland can have mud and worms, for the "I'm a rugby player get me out of here" piece?

Besides, hoovering the pitch means driving around in a truck, so the guys can do it as well.

Alex_Germany wrote:And Scotland can have mud and worms, for the "I'm a rugby player get me out of here" piece?

Besides, hoovering the pitch means driving around in a truck, so the guys can do it as well.

Oh that's okay then .....

Having been fortunate enough to briefly play on the Saracens pitch, it basically plays like a firm early/late season pitch, so  in theory makes it easier to play a running game (like Saracens do   - awaits response from Beshocked    ).
You can get pretty wet on it, as although it does drain well at lot of water "sticks" to the fibres so you get wet in rucks, but you tend not to slide and burn like you did on the old artifical pitches.
Also on the plus side, you come off the pitch with absolutely immaculate boots as the surface gives them a great clean!

Alex_Germany wrote:Any more thoughts on this, now that Saracens have had over a year on their artificial pitch? I've also heard that the Ricoh arena is planned to be artificial - so the topic is current again.

There's some discussion here:
http://www.therugbyblog.com/one-year-on-how-has-saracens-artificial-pitch-changed-the-game

Would Saracens fans recommend artificial pitches to the rest of the rugby world?

As someone who used to go to many Saracens games, I would say Yes. I would recommend it.

It's one of the best aspects of Saracens new stadium. It has many benefits.

I believe it encourages a more open, fast paced game.

Saracens' running game? Surely you mean that Saracens have reverted back to hoof the ball to the opposition with ponderous and predictable tactics being top of the agenda.

Don't know why they didn't stick to the gameplan utilised vs Clermont this year. Saracens vs Clermont was a game that really was a positive advertisement for the artificial pitch.

Our pitch is fanstastic.

The main benefit being that it shouldn't be difficult to manage in the North East mid winter.

If your asking will it make you play like the Fijians throwing the ball around for fun then that rather depends more on the skill levels of your players.

SecretFly wrote:Do you hoover artificial pitches rather than mow them?

If so, Artificial pitches can f**k right off!  

Maybe rugby should go like Tennis and have a a variety of surfaces to play on that would be global specific.  Europe could keep with the genuine grass.  USA could have artificial.  SA could have clay.  New Zealand could have clouds..... they play such Heavenly stuff....  

And Schools could have tarmac!!!!!  

You seem quite against this synthetic grass Fly! Do you realise that the Aviva uses a 50/50 pitch with interwoven fibres? As does Murrayfield, Twickers and now the MS, plus a large number of football clubs. Even Croke Park uses it! I think calls for Europe keeping genuine grass is a number of years too late.

Griff wrote:

SecretFly wrote:Do you hoover artificial pitches rather than mow them?

If so, Artificial pitches can f**k right off!  

Maybe rugby should go like Tennis and have a a variety of surfaces to play on that would be global specific.  Europe could keep with the genuine grass.  USA could have artificial.  SA could have clay.  New Zealand could have clouds..... they play such Heavenly stuff....  

And Schools could have tarmac!!!!!  

You seem quite against this synthetic grass Fly! Do you realise that the Aviva uses a 50/50 pitch with interwoven fibres? As does Murrayfield, Twickers and now the MS, plus a large number of football clubs. Even Croke Park uses it! I think calls for Europe keeping genuine grass is a number of years too late.

Me?  Against synthetic?  Me?  Having to be told what Lansdowne has?  Me?  Having to be told what Croke Park has?

Well maybe yes - against it in totality, (half and half is a nice mix)... although I wouldn't read too much into my prose though when contemplating what I might be against and for, Griff!!!    I think the tarmac tennis courts were my real 'humourous' target, only using synthetic rugby fields as a method of getting there.

But now that I'm sandblasted on the topic - yeah, I'll go along with that then; I'll champion grass then.  I'm okay with being known as a Grass Tzar then.  Should I be ashamed of giving my vote to the old cliched field sport surface?  Am I being way way too old fashioned? Am I being anti-technologist in my views???

GeordieFalcon wrote:Our pitch is fanstastic.

The main benefit being that it shouldn't be difficult to manage in the North East mid winter.

If your asking will it make you play like the Fijians throwing the ball around for fun then that rather depends more on the skill levels of your players.

Look at the improvement in our style of play this season GF with the install of the new pitch. I was a little sceptical at first but the players have steadily improved and we seem to be able to take this improved game to other grounds, it's lifted confidence in the players imo.

If we wish to carry on a winter sport, it would sense to upgrade the pitches.

SecretFly wrote:

Griff wrote:

SecretFly wrote:Do you hoover artificial pitches rather than mow them?

If so, Artificial pitches can f**k right off!  

Maybe rugby should go like Tennis and have a a variety of surfaces to play on that would be global specific.  Europe could keep with the genuine grass.  USA could have artificial.  SA could have clay.  New Zealand could have clouds..... they play such Heavenly stuff....  

And Schools could have tarmac!!!!!  

You seem quite against this synthetic grass Fly! Do you realise that the Aviva uses a 50/50 pitch with interwoven fibres? As does Murrayfield, Twickers and now the MS, plus a large number of football clubs. Even Croke Park uses it! I think calls for Europe keeping genuine grass is a number of years too late.

Me?  Against synthetic?  Me?  Having to be told what Lansdowne has?  Me?  Having to be told what Croke Park has?

Well maybe yes - against it in totality, (half and half is a nice mix)... although I wouldn't read too much into my prose though when contemplating what I might be against and for, Griff!!!    I think the tarmac tennis courts were my real 'humourous' target, only using synthetic rugby fields as a method of getting there.

But now that I'm sandblasted on the topic - yeah, I'll go along with that then; I'll champion grass then.  I'm okay with being known as a Grass Tzar then.  Should I be ashamed of giving my vote to the old cliched field sport surface?  Am I being way way too old fashioned? Am I being anti-technologist in my views???

In the fine words of today's yoof - 'WTF?!'

I played on 4G pitches in HK for several years....I really like them. You adapt your game slightly to stay on your feet a bit more quickly and scrums are much more stable. The only downside is that in a tropical climate they are a bacteria breeding ground so you gotta get the antiseptic and scrubbing brush out after a game! No worse than 'real' pitches like Barn Elms where I used to play in London which is perpetually covered in goose***t.

I remember playing at Barn Elms.  If one got tackled and went face down on the pitch after a lot of rain the ground would kick up a unique flavour.  I suppose one of the benefits of being near a river?  My current club's home pitch is the same.  Loverly.  In my experience the taste eventually goes away after drinking the energy recovery drink known as 'beer'.

In the NFL there is a tremendous array of playing surfaces, from variations of Bluegrass to the different types of artificial and semi-artificial surfaces.  No standardised playing surface so it should provide a good indicator of how the pitches play and how the hold up.