Now you're talking!

So they've been digging up the pitch again. I'm sure this is all, as they say, planned. But it's a bit of an eye-opener to the non green fingered amongst us to see it was looking like this just a week or so ago:

It's planned annual maintenance, removing and replacing the grass.

Yep, they've done the same to the Carnegie training pitch at Kirkstall.

I removed all of the grass in my back garden too, this dog was doing such a good job of removing it himself that I thought I might as well get rid - its now covered in bark chippings which stand up to dogs much better.

Maybe the new pitch could be bark chippings ?

what kind of leggings would ian kirke have to wear though?

Last time I saw it was wakey at home and it was so short that no one could stand up on it and dangerous imo

"Leeds Carnegie ran out 9-6 victors in a hard-fought win over Cornish Pirates"

The newly seeded(?) turf was looking pretty good when I looked at it on Saturday whilst I was at the cricket.
But then I thought it looked ok for our last home game.
I was very surprised to read the day after that match that the whole playing area was being removed & replaced in the 4 weeks between then & the next home game.
At least the weather is better for growing grass than when they relayed it in the winter.
I guess at that time & with the ensuing bad weather the roots just did not penetrate deeply enough into the expensively laid substrata.
Hence the need to effectively re-do that work.
Must have cost a few bob that wasn't budgeted for.

It was still cutting up quite badly at an end of season Carnegie game back in March/April that i went to, long after the amnesty on home games to help the grass establish itself, it was fairly obvious even to a gardening dolt like me that those were turfs that were ripping up that should have bound together by then.

Rugby Union places much higher demands on a pitch than RL and the one that was down last season wasn't up to the job at that time and presumably the summer hasn't helped it (although you'd think it would).