Winter Sports - Rugby World Cup
Alice Northrop gets just the tiniest bit excited as she takes the opportunity to visit one of her old university haunts - Sandy Park - ahead of their first Rugby World Cup fixture.
Groundsmen Adrian Witton and Max Sandford calm her down and tell her what it has been like for them both in the run up to the Tonga versus Namibia game
I
can’t quite explain how excited I was when I was given my visitor’s pass at the reception of Sandy Park. Visiting grounds is definitely one of the favourite aspects of my job, but this was even
more special. I hadn’t been to watch a game at the home of the Chiefs for about three years but, before then, during my time at the University of Exeter and beyond, the lads and I had been to every game that our student loans could afford, following the rise of the club from Championship to Premiership. The crowds that I was used to seeing
outside the stadium were non-existent today. In their place were RFU vans, multiple people giving orders through headpieces, and a lot of different projects being undertaken at once. Adrian Witton and Max Sandford came to meet me looking calm and collected however, and walked me round to the only area where people were not already engaged in meetings: their tool and machinery shed. The pitch was looking great, even though they told me that it hadn’t had anything
done to it since the friendly they had played on Saturday, three days before. A year or so old Desso pitch, it has had one full season already, and is coping well so far in its second. I ask whether they have had any concerns with it, “Not really,” Adrian tells me. “With a Desso pitch you don’t get too much damage to it, it drains really well. You need a good fertiliser regime to keep some kind of nutrient in it, but we don’t divot the pitch halfway through the game or anything.” So, how has the prep been coming along?
“Yeah, it’s all on track at the moment,” they tell me calmly. “For us, it’s only just started really, the first day of the Rugby World Cup. We’ve been in Chiefs mode up until today.” They aren’t feeling any pressure from the RFU either, having passed the stringent test criteria set by a group of agronomists who visit all the stadiums and facilities involved in this year’s World Cup. “They haven’t come in and said that you have to do this, or you need to do that. It’s just more advisory and just so that you are in the right parameters,” Adrian says. “It took them a long time to do it all. The kit they had was amazing.” They tested for drainage, hardness, size of pitch, general look of the pitch, signs of disease, length of grass, as well as taking soil samples and testing root length, root density and nutrient retention. As well as the height of cut, which should
be between 28-40mm (Sandy Park’s pitch is 37mm), there are stipulations on the way in which the pitch should be cut. The patterns and the lines have to be the same for all venues. But again, Adrian and Max aren’t worried about that because “funnily enough, it’s very much the same as what we already do!” The only real difference, says Max, is that the normal pitch is usually a little bit bigger on the dead balls. It seems that they have it all under
control, and with their move from Championship to Premiership in 2010, you can see why: “We’ve got a lot busier,” Adrian
comments, “I’ve been here eight years now and we were in the Championship when I first came. Average crowds were probably 3,500-4000, now we are upwards of 10,000.” The original grandstand has had two wings
added, and they have made the terraces twice the size since I was last there. The sudden increase in pressure from being under the scrutiny of the media is also something that they have dealt with before: “Everybody expects it to look absolutely spot on all the time, so there’s more pressure. As soon as somebody thinks that it is looking a little bit yellow, they will let you know.” But this doesn't faze them, “It’s a global audience now rather than just a national audience, but with regards to doing the pitch you still want it to look as good as it can.” Max comments that the new Desso pitch
has been a big learning curve for them both. With a 95% sand base, and only 5% soil, nutrient retention is “pretty much nil”. Adrian has used a lot of natural soil biology in the last couple of years, rather than trying to use too many chemicals on the pitch: “We have been trying to get the roots the best that we can get them because that’s where the strength comes from. Yes, it’s great when the grass is looking nice and green, but it comes from the roots in the first place. We try to get as much retention of nutrients in the roots as possible.” The natural soil biology that they have been using, such as compost teas and worm casts, are what Adrian says has contained the fusarium that they have been experiencing on the pitch recently. It seems to be working, as the artificial
fertiliser that has been used on the pitch this year is about 30% less than last year: “Some people are for it, some people aren’t. You either believe it or you don’t. We use it and we get on quite well with it. It has also cut down our fertiliser use a bit. With the cost of it nowadays, you’ve kind of got to look at it like that.”
Although, down in Exeter, they are lucky
Sandy Park, the home of Premiership rugby side Exeter Chiefs PC OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2015 I 63
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