For many, the sight of rugby players – international as well as amateur – covered in mud, slipping and sliding as they tried to take advantage in the scrum or a rolling maul is a familiar one. Thankfully, those images are fast receding into history as sports pitch technology advances to provide pitches that allow the technical skills of the players to flourish and fast free flowing games to become the norm.

At the international level advances in natural grass pitch construction – and in particular the development of hybrid pitch technology – has resulted in fast, stable and free draining surfaces. Now installed at Twickenham, Murrayfield, Millennium and Aviva Stadium, the development by SAPCA member Desso Sports Systems of the Grassmaster system has set a new standard in natural grass pitch construction.  

The system incorporates a free draining sand rootzone into which mono-filament fibres are injected 200mm deep, at 20mm spacing across the pitch, resulting in approximately 20 million fibres (or 40,076 km of yarn) covering 3 per cent of the total playing surface and reinforcing the natural grass. The ingenuity of the system is found below the surface where the natural grass plant roots grow around the plastic fibres, anchoring the pitch together to create stability and reinforcement, ensuring a uniform surface in good condition at all times.

Installed by specialist machines the synthetic turf yarn is injected into rootzone either prior to seeding of the pitch or after the seeding and establishment of the grass sward.  Once the grass has established the synthetic fibres are hardly visible within the grass sward. But, if the grass cover is lost through high use the synthetic fibres provide some ‘natural’ looking coverage whilst protecting the crown of the plant and rhizomes to aid a faster recovery of the plant leaf. It is claimed by Desso that the use of Grassmaster increases the carrying capacity of the pitch from a typical 200 to 300 hours per annum to around 900 hours and if growing lights, etc. are used this can be increased further to around 1000 hours.

While the use of the Desso Grassmaster system or alternative hybrid technologies from SAPCA members SIS and Greenfields has greatly improved the quality and carrying capacity of natural grass pitches it is the development of synthetic turf pitches specifically for rugby that is starting to allow cost effective superior playing surfaces within the professional and club sectors or the game. The International Rugby Board (now World Rugby) back in the early 2000s recognised the potential benefits long pile third generation synthetic turf surfaces offered the game by providing surfaces that could be installed in regions where natural grass could not be grown or at venues where the playing demands meant that natural grass pitches could just not sustain the high levels of use.

Wishing to ensure that only acceptable quality synthetic turf surfaces are used for rugby the IRB developed a performance standard for synthetic turf rugby surfaces and incorporated it into the Laws of the Game via IRB Regulation 22.   Similar in concept to the standards developed by FIFA for synthetic turf football surfaces the World rugby Standard is based on ensuring synthetic turf surfaces are manufactured from materials of proven quality and offer levels of performance that replicate good quality natural grass.

Of particular concern is the risk of player injury and the Standard pays particular attention to minimising the risk of high impact forces, concussion, fatigue, carpet burns and injury through slipping or twisting.

Compliance with the World Rugby Standard is mandatory for any facility being used for any form of competitive play or rugby training; Regulation 22 requiring all pitches to be surfaced with a synthetic turf surface that has been laboratory tested and shown to meet the Standard.  In addition each pitch needs to be tested prior to use and then retested once every two years to ensure it is still providing the performance and safety the game requires.

Under constant review by World Rugby the Standard has just been upgraded to provide even greater levels of player protection through the life of the playing surface.   This means that a typical system satisfying the 2015 requirements will comprise a 60mm synthetic turf carpet with a granulated rubber (or other form of material such as granulated cork) infill and sand stabilising layer overlaying a rubber or foam shockpad.

Synthetic turf rugby surfaces are now being used for premier league rugby by Saracens, Cardiff Blues and Newcastle Falcons and a number of other elite level clubs are known to be considering converting to the surface.

At the community level the ability to sustain much higher levels of use on a single synthetic turf pitch is proving very attractive to many rugby clubs and leisure centres. They are now able to train and hold a large number of matches on the same pitch or diversity and allow the use of the pitch for football, rugby league and even basic hockey training.  This ability to maximise the use of a pitch is one that World Rugby, FIFA, FIH and RFL all wish to encourage and they are jointly working towards a common standard that define the basic requirements to allow all four sports to be played safely on one surface.

Likely to be published later this year or early in 2016 the One Turf initiative my help to finally allow all players to move away from the mud baths or yesteryear to the clean, fast and technically skilled surfaces that the professional game is already using.

Alastair Cox, Alastair Cox Associates

Technical advisor to SAPCA