Langtree Parks magnificent pitch : Sat Jun 09, 2012 11:21 am
Something that i have not seen anyone mention is the way our pitch handled the weather conditions.They were about as bad as it can get with three days of rain including torrential rain in the last 24 hours.
Despite that the playing surface played almost like a dry pitch.
Im sure many fans will have expected a mud bath, but what we saw was players leaving the field after 80 minutes with jerseys as white as the minute they first put their kit on in the changing rooms.
There were no pools of standing water, nor areas of slutch, it was all a sea of lush green from minute 1 to minute 80.
When players hit the ground they didnt aquaplane for 10 metres, infact it was almost as if the pitch was dry.
The only thing that told you the pitch was wet was that the ball tended to stand up quicker when it hit the deck.
I think this all helped ensure that the RL on show was of a higher standard than is normally the case in such conditions. At Knowsley road it will have been a low scoring slogathon. With players just sticking it up the jumper and relying on kicks to create trys.