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'It's a different kind of pitch, and to be honest I'm not a fan'
By Paul Smith
World Cup winning coach Jake White has become the latest big name to attack the use of 4G pitches in professional rugby.
England prop Joe Marler won plenty of support from prominent players including recently-retired James Haskell, Jack Nowell, Adam Ashley-Cooper and Henry Slade when calling for artificial surfaces to be banned following Harlequins’ visit to Newcastle last month.
White, who is now at the helm of Pretoria-based franchise Bulls, saw his fly half Johan Goosen suffer a knee injury during their 29-19 United Rugby Championship win over Cardiff on the Arms Park’s 4G surface.
The fly-half went down after attempting a sidestep during the first half of the Friday night clash.
He joins a growing list of players who have suffered knee and ankle injuries while appearing on the 4G surfaces where the likes of Saracens, Newcastle, Worcester and now Gloucester play their home games.
“It’s a different kind of pitch, and to be honest I’m not a fan," White said.
"Having coached in the north and seen these 4G pitches, I’m not a fan. I understand why they do it – the weather and water tables, freezing and all that.
“But I wonder if Goosen’s injury could’ve been prohibited (prevented) if we had played on grass, because it’s such a different surface.
“Hardly anything happened there – he just turned his leg to change direction, and I think the fact that his foot got stuck in the turf and it doesn’t give as much as grass is obviously the reason why you can get a lot of knee and ankle injuries.
“It’s circumstance, it’s weather. I spoke to (Cardiff boss) Dai Young about it before the game, and there is obviously a lot more to it – the community game, and they need to keep numbers... I’m talking about generally.
“In South Africa we’re very fortunate with our temperatures and our fields that we don’t really need synthetic pitches. Our outdoors and our rugby season are generally mild enough for us to have grass.
“It’s an adaptation. I’m not a believer in it. I actually prefer grass and I prefer playing on pitches that we are used to.”
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Latest Comments
I think you have gone in the wrong direction here Nick. I think you need to delve down into the rules etc around Moana Pacifica’s selection policies and then you need to understand that a lot of KIWI BORN rugby players have PI heritage. It appears ok for the 4 home nations to pillage NZ born players constantly without retribution but you want to question whether NZ BORN players should be eligible for NZ? Seems a real agenda in there.
Go back and look at the actual Aims and agenda for MP becoming a entity and you see lots of things enshrined in policy that you arnt mentioning here. EG there is an allowance for a percentage of MP to be NZ eligible. This was done so MP could actually become competitive. Lets be real. If it wasnt this way then MP would not be competitive.
There also seems to be some sort of claim ( mainly from the NH ) that NZ is “cashing in” on MP, which , quite frankly is a major error. Are you aware of how much MP costs NZR Financially?
39 NZ born rugby players played at the last world cup for Samoa or Tonga. PLUS plenty for Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales.
Taumoefolau is a BORN AND BRED NZer. However I very strongly doubt he will be an AB, but who do you believe he should be allowed to play for? Levi Aumua is ALSO a born and bred Kiwi.
Aumua was eligible to represent Samoa and Fiji for the Pacific Nations Cup in July that year but ended up playing for neither. He IS eligible for his nation of Birth too Nick
He is a Kiwi. Are you saying an NZ born, raised Kiwi cant play for NZ now?
Sorry Nick Kiwi born and bred actually qualify for NZ.
Go to commentsYeah, Richie certainly stepped up for the ABs in 2022 and 2023 and proved he could translate his skills into the test arena. You have to understand many fans checked out at that point though, only to tune back in for a directionless WC final.
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