connachtexile wrote: I've played on an artificial pitch before and enjoyed it. It was a type of rubberised material and hitting the ground wasn't anywhere near as bad as hitting a dirt pitch in November. Better drainage to. Would be interested to see if this leads to less injuries for Saracens would probably take a few season to get a proper average to compare. That said I'm sure there's some some expert tapping away on a computer as we speak.
I work nearby the Univ of Surrey Sport Park in Guildford (Quins Training Venue), and they have 3G Astro there. My colleagues and I play a bit of lunchtime footie there and must say it's a great surface for football compared to previous generations of Astro pitches (which were really only suited to Hockey). It's plastic grass with an overlay of little black rubber pieces which seem to help to dampen bounce.
The thing about these though I've found is that they create a micro-climate on the pitch, they seem to absorb sunlight and release heat during the day and the pitch will usually be a good few degrees warmer than the surrounding area climate. In spring when you get wet/warm weather they make the environment feel extremely humid too, so teams used to playing on grass pitches will need to factor that in when playing in Barnet Copthall...
There are a variety of different pitch standards required for different sports, I've attached a Sport England diagram detailing the various types by sport which is pretty transparent
