I mentioned on another thread, the time when Les Clarke got a mate of his to dump hundreds of tons of "topsoil" onto the pitch at Boulevard. About six games into the season and it was obvious that far from being topsoil, it was mostly clay and drastic action was called for. So Les Clarke's mate suggested putting sand down to help break up the clay, he also offered to supply the sand. Turns out the sand was straight off some beach, had fragments of seashells in it and hadn't ever been sterilised. There was that much of the bloody stuff, we became know as "The Seasiders". The upshot was, we played the season out with a treatment room full of players with septic, festering cuts on their legs & arms. Every tackle was a source of infection.

Artificial pitches end up swamped in body fluids (sweat, saliva, blood etc) at the end of a game. A natural pitch has natural bacteria that help break down and mitigate potential infections, artificial pitches don't enjoy this natural phenomenon. Studies in the US have also shown, apart from "turf burn", there are higher incidences of "turf toe" (a hyperextension of the big toe), ACL, "foot lock" (where the foot cannot turn naturally) and even concussions.

It will be interesting to see how the season pans out

Of course the pitch is better after the rugby season ends. In case some haven't noticed, grass grows better in the summer than the winter. The problems at the KC are caused by the West Stand stopping the sun shining on the pitch for a lot of the time.

It is the pitch, not City that causes the problems. Boothferry Park was always acknowledged to have one of the best surfaces in football and looked like a bowling green whereas all the older ones can recall the mud wrestling which took place on the Boulevard. Remember one game being abandoned because they ran out of fresh shirts and the ref couldn't make out the two teams for the amount of mud on them?

The state of people's knees are terrible, Wonder how it will pan out.

You'd think they'd have spent a bit more on the corner flag area, the goalmouths and centre circle then because that West Stand problem only seems to affect those areas.

Basically, you've just come up with a load of old cobblers

Exactly...

Serious risk factors the only solution I can see is skins to minimize the risks

Is the easy solution to wear those real tight fitting black leggings that some players already wear . ?

the right solution was to have never allowed the pitch in the first place, it was never a good idea.

True but it is there now , and it needs to be dealt with this is only the first game

It's good to make a judgement after one game

As for cuts on knees, this happens every weekend when I play summer rugby. If they're worried about it, wear skins with a bit of extra padding on the knees and elbows/forearms. If we're going to moan about player wellfair, they should be doing this already anyway. They have a choice, and they choose to stick with "being hard" so they can't complain when they get a few cuts and bruises.

Should it be made compulsory so the players don't feel like wimps or get bullied by their mates for choosing to wear skins?!

Matty Ashurst of Salford's knees from playing on a hard cold GRASS pitch

Which is OK for some players but others don't like them and aren't comfortable wearing them, they shouldn't be forced to wear them because the pitch is artificial.

Secondly, while the weather is sub zero or even just cold wearing skins is probably helpfully but who wants to layer up for a rugby league match in June, July & August?

I'm really suprised that this ipitch wasn't more rigorously tested before being passed fit for purpose which on first assessment it isn't.

He needs some nice trendy knee pads. all the cool rugby players are wearing them