In a few months the state of the Headingley pitch will be a hot topic. Anybody persuaded by the advantages of an artificial pitch a la Widnes? I must admit I'm not convinced. Then again, more than 10% grass cover goes against my PFU leanings.

I'm open-minded about it if I'm honest.

I'm pleased that Widnes' pitch has been passed to play as it will only affect us for one match, but give us a chance to see how good it really is.

If theirs goes well, great. Either way, we'll find out next year!!

It had to be 'The Chemics' that are first to use plastic!

IIRC isn't the Chmics pitch a blend of plastic and real, genuine, grass?

I might be wrong but I think it is totally artificial. There's a [url=http://www.runcornandwidnesworld.co.uk/vikings/vikingsnews/9190263.Widnes_Vikings_i_pitch_questions_answered/Q&A with the club[/url on all aspects of the pitch, although seemingly nobody asked that specific question!

Interesting to note that other SL clubs will get a slot the day before the game to train on it should they so wish. Hats off to them for that!

Wembley has 30% of its pitch artificial. Since they added the "plastic" there has been no problems with the pitch so I don't see why not.

I know they have had lots of issues at wembley re having to get it re layed. Has it been ok since the artificial turf was added

I'm sure I read somewhere that the pitch at Widnes is a mix of 2:1. Grass to plastic. Should be a vast improvement on the plastic pitches we used to suffer on.

Aa long as it's deemed safe and can withstand a full season of RL then i don't have a problem with it.
In our case however we also have the "kick 'n' clap" brigade who play at our place and i'm sure it would have to be tested for Scrums and the usual "all pile on" situations that occur.

the new 4G pitches are brilliant. won't be long before a lot of teams have 'plastic' pitches

Do they do 4G wigs Tad???

Rhinos have a 4G pitch



Milford will be playing on it

If they did you would be too tight to buy one

My wallet still hasn't recovered spending £26 each on tickets for the final

Tight tw@

Indeed we do have one now, although it does have 5-a-side football markings on it as well so would imagine the Council were involved in it somewhere.

Also I'd heard Milford werent happy with it and were saying it's too small for their first team to use. I believe they played over the road on Abbey fields at the weekend instead of on the new pitch.

The surface at Leigh Sports Village (home of Leigh centurions) is 'Desso Grassmaster' - i.e. a mixture of real grass and artificial grass fibres. The pitch has been in pristine condition, since it was laid, despite being used by both Leigh Centurions and Blackburn Rovers.

Wasn't he one of The Furious Five?

I prefer traditional grass pitches. The one at huddersfield is 97% grass and only 3% plastic fibres, it always seems to play well despite being used throughout the year.

This is the company that are providing the pitch surface at Widnes - [urlhttp://www.dessosports.com/en/home/[/url

I understand that it is fully artificial pitch at Widnes.

These are the same guys that do the system called GrassMaster, as mentioned by some posters above, which is what we are getting at Headingley (at some point soon?) and is used all over now, Wembley, Emirates, Huddersfield etc and of course we played on it at the Keepmoat in the CC Semi Final. This is real grass reinforced with synthetic grass and is used for football, NFL, Rugby and seem to the be the choice for most modern pitches these days (I suspect Salford, Saints will be having this in their new stadiums).

They do a full artificial pitch specially for Rugby called... Rugby Pro (not i-pitch!!!) but it looks like this has only been so far used for training pitches but this could be the stuff they have at Leigh East?

It would seem that this GrassMaster stuff is becoming the pitch of choice because it is still effectivley mostly real grass but it trebles the playing time available. They say you get around 300 hours per annum playing on a pure grass surface (only 6 hours a week!) and GrassMaster trebles that, so that would be 18 hours a week.

I understand that Widnes want to play and train on the pitch as they do not have a separate training facility and this is the reason they want to go fully artificial. I can't see it become the norm in larger stadiums, but clearly for training and amateur clubs then it could be fantastic. Someone need to go first and see if this stuff works!

Haven't we had one of our pitches at kirkstall converted to one of these next gen pitches?

played on a 4g in hong kong last year and it was really good, i think one could certainly benefit leeds "rugby" long term, it seems we are getting harsher winters and since headingley has'nt got undersoil heating there would be no postponments due to frozen pitches so games would get to go ahead.

Doesn't artificial grass have a substrate that can freeze? Would it not still need an undersoil heating system?

In comparison to natural grass the characteristics of play on artificial turf are more stable. Artificial turf pitches are drained in an efficient way and can also be played on a lot quicker after a heavy downpour than a natural grass pitch. If you live in a region where there are harsh winters, then you may consider integrating a heating system under your artificial turf.

i suppose it depends what they mean by harsh i guess

Is that the old Archie Gordon Ground one? Wondered what all the new fencing up around it was about.