Our editor calls in to see Dean Gilasbey, Head Groundsman at the Parc y Scarlets stadium, and finds that he has a touch of ...
Scarlets Fever I
n recent years there has been a resurgence in Welsh rugby due, in no small measure, to three new state of the art stadia - the Liberty Stadium in Swansea, home to the Ospreys, the Cardiff Blues Cardiff City Stadium and Llanelli Scarlet’s new ground, Parc y Scarlets. All three offer up-to-date facilities with modern, sand based, reinforced pitches, and all are managed by forward thinking groundsmen. Welsh rugby has been ‘regionalised’ in
recent years in an effort to mirror the success of the format in Ireland and South Africa. The Scarlets were founded in 2003, born out of four clubs - Llanelli, Carmarthen Quins, Llandovery and Narberth. For a ‘young’ club, they have been fairly successful, having won the Celtic League once and reaching the latter stages of the Heineken and Powergen cups on a number of occasions. Dean Gilasbey is the head groundsman at the Parc y Scarlets stadium. He began his career at the tender age of sixteen, working at The Vetch, the then home of Swansea City Football Club, before taking
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over as head groundsman at Stradey Park, the home of Llanelli RUFC, where he was to hone his skills on a soil based pitch.
In 2005, and after thirteen years service at Stradey Park, he was offered a position at Swansea’s new Liberty Stadium and the opportunity to gain experience of working with, and understanding the techniques required of, a reinforced Desso pitch. Working alongside Head Groundsman, Dan Duffy, between them they trialed and perfected many new working practices to keep the Liberty pitch in peak condition. This experience resulted in Dean being asked to work closely with the contractors providing the new pitch at Parc y Scarlets and, subsequently, the position of head groundsman. MJ Abbott were carrying out the main construction, which included 80mm piped drainage at five metre centres, undersoil heating and a fully automated Rainbird pop-up irrigation system. Inscapes then laid a ‘new technology’ Fibrelastic pitch from Mansfield Sand, 100mm of which was laid over 200mm of sand.
Work began on the pitch on 9th June 2008 and was completed in just over a month when, on 11th July, it was seeded with an MM60 perennial rye mix. Favourable temperatures ensured quick germination and, nine days later, Dean was completing his first cut with new John Deere pedestrian rotaries and, not long after, began regular cutting with his recently acquired Dennis G860 cylinder mowers.
The G860s come with brush and verticut cassettes and, as well as five John Deere rotaries, a Charterhouse Vertidrain, SISIS Aeraid, John Deere tractor, John Deere triple mower and Bowcom transfer spray jet markers have been purchased. Feeding the new turf was planned with military precision using a combination of granular and liquid feeds. Dean’s aim was to get as much root depth as possible before the onset of winter and the club’s first fixture in the November. Having been involved throughout the construction of the pitch, he knows it better than anyone else. But, being just over a year old, extensive record
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