New turf for Dome centre
16 June, 2005
Sportal for afl.com.au
Telstra Dome will replace the turf in the centre circle of the ground in time for Saturday night's match between Richmond and Adelaide.
Telstra Dome’s operations manager, Andrew Travis said arena management reviewed the centre circle on Thursday morning following Wednesday night’s EJ Whitten Legends Match.
"The match took its toll on the area and we felt it would be best to replace the turf to ensure we deliver the best playing surface for Saturday’s round 13 clash," said Travis.
"The verti draining procedure we used on Tuesday had been effective reducing excess moisture in the area, but the mid week encounter had taken it’s toll on the circle."
Earlier in the week, Richmond coach Terry Wallace was critical of the state of the turf in and around the centre circle, blaming 'slipperiness' for groin injuries sustained by Tigers ruckmen Trent Knobel and Troy Simmonds against the Kangaroos last Sunday.
Telstra Dome invited the Richmond Football Club and the AFL to view the playing field on Thursday morning and gain feedback.
According to Telstra Dome management, all parties are happy with the outcome.
The centre circle turf will be replaced on Friday.
Wayne Schwass was on SEN this morning, I didn’t watch it, but he must’ve played in the Legends game the other night, and they asked him about the surface at TD. He said they have a real problem there and the ground seems as though it is constantly watered.
You would think that TD management would always be looking at ways to improve the surface, but this is the 6th season the ground has been in use and the only real solution they seem to have come up with so far is to re-lay sections of the turf every other week, which doesn’t really seem to be a solution to anything, for very long.
I was wondering if they could have something like “heat lines” or “heat pipes”, which could be installed in the soil. These lines/pipes could help dry out the soil and help alleviate the fact that the soil doesn’t dry naturally. Not sure if I dreamed it, but does such a system exist in England, or in colder climate countries, at certain stadiums? Although they would mostly use different surface types, similar principles could be applied to help dry the TD surface.
The other thing they could do, as well, or instead of that, is to use heat lights or some heating method to dry the surface. I’m sure they’ve had lots of these types of suggestions, so it’s a wonder that they don’t seem to have tried anything different.
Cost comes into it I suppose, but if TD is going to be used for AFL games for the long-term then they clearly need to come up with something better than this. As there are other stadiums around the world where they would have similar type issues, TD management could share R&D expenses with other similarly affected stadium managers, to try and find a cost-effective solution. They can keep re-laying the turf, but it doesn’t seem to have solved anything to now.
