The much-maligned playing surface at Lansdowne Road is to receive a €400,000 face-lift following a busy season in both rugby and soccer which has seen the pitch deteriorate badly. Work on the pitch began yesterday and the Irish Rugby Football Union expect the new surface to be ready by early September in time for the second of Ireland's RWC qualifiers on the 28th of September.
A combined total of 36 rugby and soccer matches between June last year and May of this year left the surface in a 'dangerous condition' according to Phillip Browne, the Chief Executive of the IRFU. Speaking to The Irish Times, Browne admitted: "As a rugby surface it was a poor surface this season because the sod was being kicked out and it was almost in a dangerous condition for rugby at certain times this year."
The IRFU have decided to follow the example of a number of Premiership soccer clubs in England, by laying a mixture of polypropylene fibres and natural grass seeds on a bed of sand and clay. There are also plans to lay a number of drainage channels across the width of the pitch to improve the drainage, which was shown to be less than effective when flooding marred Ireland's recent friendly victory over the USA.
Similar work was carried out with great success on the second pitch at Limerick's Thomond Park recently.
Filed by Shane Murray
