Well mathers is having a cry on twitter about the pitch saying its a absolute joke and his elbows and knees are cut up .

Bloody Hell(bow) Mathers.



(Nice to see the first try of the season coming from a familiar source as well)

I personally wouldn't like to play on Widnes pitch. You could see that quite a few of the players were very reluctant to turn or stop abruptly at tonights match.

I wonder how they go on with studs ? Can they grip the surface at all ?

Well injuries caused will be a bigger determining factor than grazes. I told Mathers than he should just have put a pair of jeggings on and he'd have been reet.

Widnes' injury record will be interesting to see as the season goes on.

I'm sure we had a semi artificial pitch at one point, but there were lots of injuries to football players and Hock and O'Loughlin both doing their knee ligaments . From what I remember, it was said the injuries were caused by studs getting snagged in some netting below the surface? I didn't like the iPitch... You could clearly see many players with cuts and burns on their knees and elbows.

The original pitch was some sort of hybrid that was meant to be able to withstand heavy usage.

Unfortunately, despite being told, they didn't dig down deep enough with the drainage nor did they raise the pitch enough and so it gets flooded every year and that's why it's constantly poor.

I've had a massive weeping scab on my knee all week from a 3g pitch. That was from soccer, wouldn't like to play rugby on one.

Why don't they wear protective bandages on elbows and knees. They wouldn't have to be cumbersome. I expect we will see this happening as the season wears on.

That's quite common in modern grass pitches. The fantastic pitch at the Etihad Stadium has a plastic thread woven into the turf to stop it breaking up. I don't know how deep it is but it would have to be fairly shallow for it to work.

We'll see what effect that has on rugby in May.

I get these from playing hockey on astro pitches, but that's every week, and they take ages to heal. Widnes will play every other week, and as has already been said, they will probably get elbow and knee pads or bandaging. Visiting teams will only play there once.

PS: Try the hydrocolloid dressings from Boots: ideal for wet-healing this type of injury.

they want to try playing propper summer rugby on pitches like judes which has no sprinkler system other than the odd dog being walked having a tinkle on it its like concrete. It comes to summat when rugby players are moaning about a grazed knee

When has Headingley ever supposedly been labelled the "best ground" in RL??

Its probably the best of the 100yrs+, but best in RL? You'd be right to think not.

Its a pitch used 12mths a year by 2 different sports, at the beginning of the season in minus conditions covered in sand. Hardly gonna be perfect is it??

Doesn't matter what excuse you make, it's not good enough. Those days are supposed to be over for RL. The pitch is awful, it should be taken into account when rating the ground.

To be honest, the DW pitch didn't look too good at the weekend either. SImilarly, not good enough.

My god it's not rocket science is it?
for all of you intelligent posters please stop reading now as you clearly know the answer

ANSWER
Pitches that are used for a constant 12 months tend to suffer,especially in the winter months when grass doesn't grow