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WRU considering artificial Millennium Stadium pitch

TRF_Cymro

Cymro The White
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The Welsh Rugby Union is thinking about replacing the pitch at the Millennium Stadium with an artificial surface.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/20747799
 
Cant really put into coherent words how bad an idea that is. Just NO!
 
Cant really put into coherent words how bad an idea that is. Just NO!

I don't really see what's so wrong with it. The Millennium Stadium turf has been awful standard for a long time now, if this solves that problem then that's a good thing.

On another note, the Liberty Stadium has arguably one of best turfs in the rugby imo, it has football and rugby played on it regularly and always looks in good condition and rarely cuts up drastically under scrums. Perhaps the MS can take some advice from their groundsman?
 
Cant really put into coherent words how bad an idea that is. Just NO!

Really? Considering how much the pitch tears apart, we really have no other option. Millennium is well-known as having amongst the worse surfaces of international stadia.
If we keep grass for traditions' sake then we have no hope.

@Duck, Liberty is part artificial I believe.
 
I don't really see what's so wrong with it. The Millennium Stadium turf has been awful standard for a long time now, if this solves that problem then that's a good thing.

On another note, the Liberty Stadium has arguably one of best turfs in the rugby imo, it has football and rugby played on it regularly and always looks in good condition and rarely cuts up drastically under scrums. Perhaps the MS can take some advice from their groundsman?

Groundsman is not the problem. More to do with the palleting of the turf in and the air circulation in the MS. Palleting does not allow the soil to really bed in which is part of the problem.
 
Groundsman is not the problem. More to do with the palleting of the turf in and the air circulation in the MS. Palleting does not allow the soil to really bed in which is part of the problem.

Grass will always be an issue in a stadium such as Millennium. Little natural sunlight and poor circulation, as you have mentioned.

I'd rather have artificial turf than see players constantly falling over and scrums leaving a brown wake.
 
Rugby is played on grass, end of.

Want to play artificial pitches? P**s off and play gridiron or hockey
 
Something has to be done at Millennium.
The grass constantly tears up, players always bring this up. What could we do? I've heard about a 'retractable' pitch, but we lack space.

Artificial turfs are advacing, they don't have to be wholly artificial either. Liberty uses a hybrid type.
 
Rugby is played on grass, end of.

Want to play artificial pitches? P**s off and play gridiron or hockey
Tradition isn't exactly the most compelling argument.

Particularly when rugby has already shown that it isn't a particularly conservative sport (eg rule changes, TMOs, shirt changes etc.).
 
Rugby is played on grass, end of.

Want to play artificial pitches? P**s off and play gridiron or hockey
Tennis, hockey, basketball, gridiron and pretty much every sport could have used that same argument before using... you know, other types of surfaces...
 
Marc Jones ‏<s style="text-decoration: initial; color: rgb(187, 187, 187);">@</s>Marc_jones2
WRU considering artificial pitch at the millennium stadium. Goodbye knee ligaments.




Don't like artificial pitches myself. Sale train on one at the SCR stadium, and they don't seem to like 'em either.

Also heard a lot of bad things out of Super League about them, as Widnes (I think it is?) have one, and several sides have had to use them when turf is frozen.

Well Marc Jones won't ever be playing at the Millennium Stadium so he doesn't have to worry.

I'm no scientist, but playing on this is certainly worse for knee ligaments than this anyway. With a change of pitch we can finally stop the farce of players falling all over the place at the Millennium Stadium, have better quality matches, better player welfare and finally and importantly the WRU save "millions" as maintaining the Millennium Stadium turf is very expensive compared to artificial. Seems like a simple decision to me.

That "tradition" argument is nonsense as well, by that logic we should still be using pig bladders for the balls.

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liberty-stadium.jpg
 

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