After 15 years of ground sharing with Watford Saracens will finally get a home of their own on Jan 27th when they open "Allianz Park" for an LV Cup game with Cardiff Blues, before a full launch against Exeter on Feb 16th I believe.
Whilst this might seem a little uninteresting there is something highly noteworthy about it in that Saracens will play on an artificial pitch. Apparently they willl be the first professional rugby side to do so, and it will be interesting to see how it works.
Personally my memories of artificial turf are not good - Luton, QPR and Preston I think in the 1980s and its rather difficult to see how rugby can be played on such a surface. Nonethless they seem happy that its good to go, and I imagine the change in surface will make Saracens very hard to beat at home, due to the lack of familiarity of away sides with it.
Whilst Saracens have struggled to get much "home field" advantage in the past playing sort of at home in Watford, but wandering like some biblical lost tribe, could this give them an unfair advantage, or could it catch on elsewhere and indeed, should it?
A new home for Saracens
posted on 7/1/13
Hi first time post on the rugby board (regular reader)!
Widnes launched an artificle pitch last year in League - it didnt go down well at the start of the season with opposition player complaining of skin burns etc, the proplems were put down to the pitch being frozen underneath (i will try and find a link somewhere) but as the season moved into the summer months less was heard about it.
the problem for me is that the RL season is from March through to October so is largely played in the summer (not a lot of frozen pitches) but the premiership runs September to May and is largely played in the winter where the new pitch could be frozen and therefore lots of complaints.
posted on 7/1/13
Link as mentioned
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/widnes-vikings-defend-their-new-artificial-675884
posted on 7/1/13
Hi there
Thanks for that
Do you reckon the pitch being frozen was the problem or was it just a case of getting used to it - it seems unusual for a pitch to be frozen in March?
Also, given that there's no water in the "grass" presumably you could displace any ice the might have frozen on to it from the air by just rolling something heavy across the pitch?
I have to admit I'm not tech-savvy to the finer points of plastic pitches but its generally encouraging to hear that it has been done in league and seems to have worked - though would there be less of an issue wit high balls and scrums in league?
posted on 7/1/13
yeah, I must admit i dont know that much about it myself
I assume water can get into the areas between the synthetic fibres and freeze, i guessit was a particularly cold weekend!?!
I imagine all players will wear full body skin suits, just incase there is an issue, that makes sense to me.
posted on 8/1/13
Cheers for the Info Tony
But hey, "full body skin suits" not likely. To be honest i'm on the opposite end from SARS i see your info as highly discouraging regarding frozen surfaces causing injury. My brother plays a lot of football and i remember he got a bloody nasty burn injury from an artificial surface a few years ago. not such a big deal in foot ball, but in rugby, if you have a nasty burn all scabbed over its not going to be all healed up by the next weekend when you have to play again.
SARS on Munster. Hell man, they have really fallen from a mountain top, but they will get back up there again. I think their major problem has been the lack of youth development. It led them into the current rebuilding/transition era but they are 10 years behind Leinster in terms of a fully operational youth structure.
But this is Munster, and you can't keep them down for long. But make no mistake. This is a full on restructuring and well as mental reprogramming that's going on there. And right now and for a couple of years more they are going to struggle. Changing their style is great, but if you want to go from the territorial ground hogs style of their past glory days to a running, off loading full tilt style the absolutely fundamental change is a running Fly-Half.
I think O'Gara is still a world class FH but not a running teams standoff. And we all know that a rugby team plays to what ever style the FH dictates and unfortunately ROG is not built for a running rugby team.
posted on 8/1/13
Hey SARS get the Heineken cup thread up and running. This is going to be a cracking weekend! Let's get the debate going! I plan on being more bias than ever before! Than EVR I TELL YOU! <- all caps rage there.
posted on 8/1/13
Hey SARS,
Sorry for the slow reply. Yes I've propped on artificial turf it wasn't too bad, like theresgonnabeashow mentioned its not like the astro turf of old, it's either a real pitch wovern with artificial turf like Irish play on at the Majesky or its the super new artificial stuff.
Tony raises an interesting point about frozen pitches, you'd hope they'd be heated these days surely?
posted on 8/1/13
SARS
My view on the Saints 10 dilemma.
As you will have seen for yourself, Lamb is - shall we say- an enigma. Certainly more inventive on his day than Myler, but equally unreliable. I hoped he'd be a shade more reliable than Geraghty, but sadly no.
So, for me it's the safety of Myler every time. I know it doesn't turn the forward power into fluid back play, but it's a bit like the old Andrew or Barnes type argument.
I'd have loved to have seen us take the punt on Cipriani that Sale did. Other than that, it's a pity George Ford is on his way to Bath. I was hoping he might have wanted the chance to shine just a few miles down the road. . I think it would have been a great fit on all sides.
posted on 1/12/15
Tom Leech
posted on 2/12/15
Who he?
Unless you mean Tom Leach, a kid in the Worcester Warriors academy.