I presume Castle Park was considered.

I presume all local options would have been considered first.

I believe some fans have been told Pitch Two isn't up to the required standard for rugby to be played on it.

I hope the club will get this sorted so that we have an assurance that no games will have to be played away from the Keepmoat complex in future seasons.

If this isn't done, it will without doubt affect future season ticket sales and won't best please many current fans.

This was raised last year I believe and the answer was that they have their main pitch under renovation as well at this time of year. Thus ruling out playing there.

It will always be Mike that the pitch at the Keepmoat has to have the maintenance work. Perhaps this question of working around the fixture schedule in an effort to lesson the impact should be one that is raised at the next fans meeting with the club.

Playing on Pitch Two is not ideal but I think most of us can live with it.

At the next fans meeting, I will ask why Pitch Two hasn't been properly prepared in order for these games to be played there. The next meeting is on Thursday 23rd May. That's three days before we play W Wales again.

Why can't pitch two be an artificial playing surface?
Wouldn't that be the answer?
It is used for all sorts of things and grass is not up to that.
We could get used to playing Oldham on that too.

Yes, I too have spoken to a number of people who are far from happy with this decision.

If this plays out the way that it sounds like it will, the Dons will have significantly reduced support for these games which must surely have a potentially negative effect on the players / performance in fixtures which are against other promotion candidates.

Looking beyond that, people are stating that they already haven't (for this season) or won't be purchasing season tickets (for next season) due to fixtures being taken out of the town. This should be ringing alarm bells at the Club.

As I posted on another thread, the fixtures are not released officially until viewed / agreed by the Clubs and Club Doncaster know pretty much when the pitch won't be available for the Dons so some fixture reversals would surely be possible thus allowing us to play all home matches at the Keepmoat Stadium.

Toronto Wolfpack arranged with the RFL to play a number of there away fixtures at the start of this season in a batch because the weather in Canada at that time of the year would probably be unsuitable for there home fixtures to be played there.
If the Dons know before the beginning of the new season the dates when the pitch at the Keepmoat would be unavailable due to maintenance work why can't they discuss this with the RFL & try to schedule a number of there away fixtures to be played during this period.

They probably did try to liaise with the RFL but playing no home games for a two month period is a poor outcome too.

Fans are creatures of habit. We need home games to be no more than three weeks apart at best. We don't want to have to play all our home games in the freezing cold of February and March with blank periods during June and July. It makes no sense financially to operate like this.

Then pitch 2 has to be available when we aren't able to play inside the stadium.

Yes with an all weather playing surface.
Gary have a word with your mate Christo and see if he can sponsor a few rolls from Wilson's Carpets.

Sounds like a good idea to go for all weather. Can such a surface cope with javelins and shot puts?

Dunno ... but if the Rovers can 'turf' us off the main pitch ... we can 'plastic turf' those injurious activities off in turn.
The main problem would be the expenditure of more than Steptoe & Son money.

Some news on potential costs....

[urlhttps://www.thesoccerstore.co.uk/blog/latest-news/how-much-does-an-artificial-football-pitch-cost/[/url

With the current arrangements that have been put in place for this season after the home against Oldham on June 9th it will be a period of six weeks before the next game to be played at the Keepmoat against North Wales Crusaders on July 21st in this period the Dons will have incurred the costs of paying Featherstone Rovers for the use of there ground & all the associated costs that go with hosting a professional rugby league game.

I wonder if there was any consideration of playing the matches in Hull.

Could have been a bit of a ‘thank you’ to the supporters for the inconvenience if the matches could have been tied in as curtain raisers for Hull FC games.

Any thoughts?

Now thats how the club should be thinking!!!!

How did Levy go?

He was steady, putting in plenty of effort.

Sounds like a very good option.

I've checked and Hull don't have any home games on the weekends we're playing the two matches in Featherstone.

Hull also don't have any home games between 8th June and 4th July. I wonder if they do their pitch work in that 4 week window?

Wigan share with Wigan Athletic. They have no home games between 2nd May and 28th June. Their home match against Warrington on 25th May is being played at Anfield.

Ground-sharing Huddersfield have no home games between 17th May and 21st June and have no home games scheduled to be played away from their main stadium.

It seems like the RFL don’t have any objections to this kind of arrangement.

Perhaps our leaders can take note in time for next season and plan ahead.

Due to ground improvements Leeds Rhinos arranged with the RFL to play the first four games of this season as away fixtures,there is a technical term for this type of arrangement its called forward thinking & planning.

Donny have done similar ...
they have decided to turn their home games into away games ... smart cookies.

I would imagine that clubs have to both mutually agree to the swapping of fixtures and maybe Newcastle and Whitehaven didn't want to give up 'home advantage' in the early games of the season which is what they would have done.

Suppose our first home game had been at home to Newcastle and Newcastle approached us to reverse the fixture because of ground work when we should play at their place, I don't think I'd have been very happy to do this. I'd have wanted to use home advantage to give them a thumping, bank two points, and give them something to think about for the reverse game later in the season.

I'm really not in favour of clubs either playing a string of games at home followed by a string of games away. Fans want home games every two weeks (three weeks max). Going long periods without home games will help to destroy a club's supporter base and will have a detrimental effect on the game.

In the case of Leeds, it's extenuating circumstances. They won't be re-building every year. I fear we'll be on the road to Featherstone every year unless Pitch Two is brought up to scratch.

I'll bet Newcastle & Whitehaven weren't even approached about it as our club are
to dumb to be that forward thinking, always the last minute decision, like oops weve forgot to plan this again.
Fans also don't want to be travelling away for HOME matches