Re: Daunting trip to Odsal...........

Quote: Cala Millor Rhino "OK, here we go

OK, let's start at the beginning and add a little perspective...

The winds come in Perpignan usually for 2-3 days, they've been here for 3 weeks at least, this has a negative effect on the grass, twofold, 1- it dries out the soil and 2 it "burns" the grass (like the wind attacking your face non-stop for 3 weeks, its not gonna be a pretty sight)

The ground isn't owned by the club, and the club have no say as to who the ground keeper is, they've been trying to get rid of the current guy for 2 years, so have no control as to what happens on the field at all.

Because reparation work has been needed since the last friendly, the club has not trained on the pitch, but at the local university in the hope that the pitch will have had the correct groundworks done to it, these have not been carried out by the ground keeper.

On Friday after the referee arrived in France he attended the stadium to look at the pitch and deemed the game playable.

Now the pitch was 95% playable on Saturday, what has happened is the ground was deemed by the Catalans to be too hard, so the ground keeper watered the pitch on Friday night after the previous pitch inspection by Bentham, because the ground ws hard, the water 'pooled' in certain areas and overnight froze, there was no concern at the time as the ground keeper thought these would melt and disperse as the sun melted them. The main area of concern was a 20 metre square (ish) area under the main stand (Bonzom), this area of the pitch did not get any sunlight so did not melt. Every other area of the pitch was playable.

It was at this time (around lunchtime) that Trent Robinson called Hull to say that he had concerns over the pitch, both coaches and CEO's attended a 2pm pitch inspection with the RFL officials and decided to call the game off. There was talk of taking it to the Aime Giral to play on Sunday morning but their pitch was worse with the ice than Brutus.

It is harsh on the fans that travelled over, but I got to the stadium yesterday at 1

just a question - according to the l'Independant this morning on

? C'est pourtant ce qui s'est produit ce week-end, du côté de Brutus

this says that actually the pitch was watered the day before the game as well as the morning of the game ?

this can't be true, can it ? I mean, can anyone be so stupid ?

the galling thing is that the LER game at UTCv Montpellier game went ahead without a problem (no watering involved) as well as the game at Limoux v FCL where conditions were cold and sub-zero but still went ahead without the pitch being watered of course.

I just hope that the Catalan club will make it up to those Hull fans who wasted their money in some way - it's the least they can do surely ?

Sat 2nd Nov

MINT2024

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