No disrespect what do people want the pitch to do, jump up and down and sing to the crowd?

My statement was based on a business point of view and not a superleague point of view. In the 5 ? Or so weeks the pitch has been here, every night in the week it has brought in large amounts of revenue and continues to do so. So on a superleague point of view it does remain to be seen but as far as a business poin of view goes, it's a treat.

Cheers

The point is, that the ipitch is primarily a rugby league pitch, that can also be used for other activities. However, if the pitch is unsuitable for rugby league, then it wont matter if its plastic, concrete, or whatever, they would need to replace it.
The comment concerning the injuries so far was that it wasn't directly the fault of the pitch, but it din't say that the pitch was not at all to blame.
As many people have said, time will tell.

Fair point but there was a comment from the club saying Ben kavanahs break had nothing to do with the pitch. It was a consistent yet unfortunate injury that happens in rugby.

As for watts, he did his ACL. In Huddersfield Friday two Warrington players did similar injuries, no one says anything about the pitch. The RFL after the Wakefield game were pleased with it, Salford coach had no problems with it. It saves the club around £10000 in payments a year that would have gone to an ameteur club in widnes for letting our academy use their facilities. If the slightest injury occurs on the pitch then it will be 'blame the I-pitch!!' but it's going to take concrete evidence and not a few scrapes to convince both Steve Connor and the RFL to dig up the pitch.

Grazing, so far, is the only actual issue. There is clearly a problem in cold weather. Most RL players wouldn’t moan about it if they thought they were minor issues. Mathers said that his injury got infected. So, that isn’t good. However, it looks like playing on a frozen turf pitch is far worse.

The question now is, what happens in the summer? I doubt these grazes will stop altogether, as you still get them all-year-round on turf too, but the severity of these grazes needs to be monitored. I actually think that Betts was out of order in telling Ritchie Mathers to “Man Up”, but RM could have chosen a better way to voice his opinions. He seems to be keeping up his one-man Twitter campaign as well, linking every injury on the ipitch to the surface.

Medical staff and physios, at the club, have investigated these injuries and provided reports to the club, and probably the RFL. Their conclusions are that none of the serious injuries can be put down to the ipitch. The Doctor has signed the Hippocratic oath and would not be thinking about the clubs interest in the ipitch. To knowingly do so, at the expense of player saftey, could see him struck off. Remember what happened to the Doctor in the RU ‘Blood Gate’ scandal?

My concerns about the ipitch are the grazes caused (I don’t want to see RL played by men in tights) and the fact that it seems difficult for players to stop at speed. I think John Kear said that might be a good thing though.

If clubs trying to get stadiums built could include an ipitch, as part of the package, it may help to get them passed and built. Local councils would see the benefit of their local community being able to use it and the costs from that could help the resident RL club sustain long-term viablility. Many councils look at stadiums as big white elephants that loose money, and they can be. Maybe now they won’t be? That’s why it’s worth giving it a chance before binning it.

That’s not North Korean style autocratic diktat, just a bit of level-headed common sense, which seems to be lost on some people.

Do you mean there are some clubs still to move to new stadia.

Hopefully cas and wakey at some stage

Which is exactly what I posted a page or so ago, before the Widnes thought police arrived and started over-reacting and repeating the usual wall of noise good news dogma about the business benefits of the ipitch.

As I said, over-stating the benefits before the evidence is in is just as foolish as over-stating the problems; we'll find out of the ipitch has been a success over the course of this season, which seems to be the position that most sensible people are now taking. Calm down dear.

Are you for real?

Your a Wakefield fan who continues to bring this subject up, why? Oh yes because a loanee player of yours had a moan about grazing his knee about it. Your the one who questions any release or player comment about it... why?

Widnes fans who defend there club is nothing on Wakefield fans who continue to hammer something they had no real issues with and club said as much. Sorry we can't all be stuck in the dark ages!

I would say the benefits are far more calculable and obvious, at this time, than the possible drawbacks. Thus it is perfectly reasonable to point them out. If you dispute the benefits, then tell us why?

What is “over-reacting” is, demanding that the ipitch be dug up now and Widnes forced to move to St Helens for their home games. That is a typical comment from your board. There are still a few level heads on there though.

I suppose you think using the phrase “Widnes thought Police”, because some of us have the brazen temerity to counter some of the half-baked nonsense and partisan bile coming from some Wakey fans, is perfectly measured response then?

Nope it is hysterical and childish and designed purely to discredit the messenger because you are struggling to dismiss the message.

You are Alistair Campbell and I claim my £5

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

fantastic!

Well when (if) York City FC & York City Knights get their new stadium I really hope that the powers that be consider getting an iPitch fitted.

You're creating a position that doesn't exist purely for the sake of arguing against it and reacting to anything other than glowing praise for the ipitch with this type of tripe, nonsense, polemic, rhetoric and dogma. I can't be ar5ed lads - you win at something or other.

Most people use the word 'facts' but never mind.

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As I have made it clear that I haven't fully endorsed it myself, and still have my own reservations, That isn't true is it?

I don't know any more - I've lost the will to live.

For what it's worth, I hope it's a success and we'll know either way over the course of the coming season; on that at least we appear to be able to agree.

I personally hope the thing is a complete failure. I love the fact that the weather and surface can have an effect on games, for me that’s part and parcel of the game. It’s called playing to the conditions and has always been part of the game. Rugby is played on grass and always should be, anything else just doesn’t look or feel authentic, just my opinion.

What annoys me most about all this is that we have been told several times now that it’s the future! Comments like suggest it’s tried and tested and a complete success. Lets wait till a reasonable amount of games have been played on it before we make judgments on the future of playing surfaces.

Given that Newmarket is billed as a community facility, and available for all, it'll be interesting to see what kind of pitch is laid there if it gets the go ahead....

The stadium pitch is currently proposed to be a grass pitch, although it will probably be a Desso Grassmaster pitch like most new modern grass pitches, which is what they have at the Galpharm, Keepmoat, Leigh Sport Village and Wembley, among others.

The current proposal will be then two training pitches, an all weather full 4G/iPitch and a full size grass pitch (they might wish for Grassmaster on here too but it might be too expensive!). The grass training pitch will be used for training by Wakefield, and anyone else who wants it, in the better weather, but also for local RL & football finals as they propose to have a small spectator stand alongside this pitch for this purpose. Both pitches will be floodlit and the all-weather pitch will be used as many hours a day as possible.

We play in the championship and have the best pitch in RL. FACT.

Dint realise Wakey had been relegated!

He's a Fax fan.

Even I got it!

Cheers for the info IA. Sounds like a nice set up