Various players have commented on it on Twitter over the season, summed up pretty much by Ryan Atkins yesterday: "I honestly didn't mind the pitch but wouldn't want to play on it every week!"

I was thinking this the other day has there been anymore injuries on it compared to grass?

It doesnt help the home team when defending thats for sure

It's ugly, scruffy dirty and industrial and I can't see the point, what's wrong with grass?
Reduces the spectacle of sport, which is actually why we go and spend our hard earned. Not for me.

It's a vastly improved technology over the astro-turf pitches I played on 20 years ago and still bear the scars from now. The manufacturers have proven the pitches are not a direct cause of serious injury (Serious injuries will still occur and possibly in differnet scenarios to proper grass) and I think this has been shown over the season.

Give it 20 years and professional 'pitch based' sports will all be on at least partially artificial surfaces.

I'd say McShane got injured due to the pitch yesterday.

It also goes some way towards spoiling the game as players do not play the same way as they do on grass eg wingers do not dive for the corners.

From what I hear there are regularly been players suffering from infected "burns" for weeks after playing on teh pitch. Dig it up and condemn it to history.

the pitch will ultimately be judged on what type of return on investment it produces, it just makes no financial sense to have the biggest area of a modern stadium only contributing to the up keep for a couple of hours for about 20 weekends

I've got a mate whose played on it and he hated it. Apparently its too 'fast' and the bounce of the ball isn't true.

You had me with you until that part

!

For the first time I'm interested how the proposed i pitch will be at Barnet when the Saracens RU team move there, insomuch as how it copes with competitive scrums, ie can forwards dig in for a push ?

Does it have an iPod dock?

pitches in the US (predominantly NFL) have been proven to 'give' far less than grass and the result is more injuries due to the more unforgiving nature of the surface/substructure (created by greater forces on impact as well as other lower limb rotation issues). That the NFL players are fully covered from top to toe means they don't have to endure any grazes but clearly this is an issue that needs a proper investigation.

Spoke to a couple of pro's on this, they hate in, in fact one of the guys said it's put certain players off signing for Widnes.

I think once Widnes break even on this they could consider returning to grass.

enough about Widnes.....we were discussing the pitch

They'll all have faces like Freddy Krueger by season's end, the amount of time they spend rubbing around on the ground.

Lots are now. They have plastic weaved into the grass so they are a hybrid type surface.

What was funny at the game at weekend was stewards telling people/press etc they couldnt walk across the black rubber strip behind the goals because "its actually part of the pitch".

wire had two players that didn't come out in the second half due to knee ligament injuries.

which could or could not be down to pitch, much like most other incidences of this injury.

Multiple teams in the NFL have turned to artificial pitches because it prevents injuries...and covered head to toe apart from the arms you mean?

Off the top of my head I can only think of 6 of the 32 NFL teams that still play on grass.

I don't think that one season will give enough data to draw any conclusions, and owing to the fact that no two games of rugby are ever the same, you can never have a real control group to compare against.

Don't forget; correlation does not equal causation.

I'm in favour of us playing on grass, but the iPitch has been a great creation for the community.

It's really soft (though strangley firm( compared to grass and is unforgiving. I don't think it's to blame for the broken leg, torn achilles or ACL rupture that's been suffered on it this year, but I think the general wear from training on such a surface as this will causep layers slowly-released harm. Shin splints, sore knees, hips, ankles and the like. Betts has admitted the Widnes side have had to resort to sometimes training on grass to give the players a rest from it.

Another note - watching the video of the match yesterday, it was unbelievably tatty-looking. Couldn't see any markings or anything.

Ideally, Widnes could move the iPitch to the proposed training ground on the old ICI pitches, return to grass and hopefully keep a lot of the business that the iPitch has generated. Of course, the stadium surroundings are central to this, but I'd like to think at a smart training facility there will be some appeal for the local football and touch rugby squads to carry on hiring it out.

Well you had better check the research fella as I did, it shows that there are more/greater injuries based just on impact alone on on ipithces, just because something is changed doesn't make it better does it. It is mainly for financial reasons plus eveness of the surface I guess.
Yes of course most players are short sleeved, however the pertinant parts regarding grazes such as knees/legs are covered, those involved in diving around like the Safety's LB/TE/WR/RB's etc all wear gloves in any case

www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/ ... 2Q20120501

www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/ ... 2Q20120501

Very true, the KC Stadium has this done, dunno how they do it tho, has footy n rugby played on it constantly and seems to hold up ok