A pitch for the future

The current work on the Croke Park pitch is intended to be the last major repair process on the surface, which it is now hoped will require only routine maintenance work in the future.

According to stadium director Peter McKenna, the purpose of the work is to address the twin problems of players slipping and blistering.

"This is a lot more aggressive than routine pitch maintenance," he said of the treatment that is under way. "The idea is to loosen up the surface and make it less impacted. This should help stud catch and at the same time keep the ball proud. It's a compromise between hardness and traction."

In the past many players have found the surface slippery, on the one hand, but on the other, too hard to wear longer studs on without blistering their feet.

"We're scarifying the surface at the moment to tear away the dead grass and old foliage," according to McKenna. "When it's stripped bare it's drained by a process a bit like spiking, but using longer implements, called verti-draining.

"Then we feed it and change the composition of the seed base. We've added some new carpet grass and covered the ground with growth blankets, porous enough to allow breathing."

Although there is disappointment at the unavailability of the ground for Sunday week's semi-finals, now is really the only opportunity to get the work done.

"We could only really do it at this time of the year," he says. "Ideally the work should be done in mid-summer because of the daylight and temperature but that's obviously out of the question. There's no growth until March and even then, this year was too cold early on.

"The hope is now that there'll be good weather - sun, some rain and a slightly muggy atmosphere. As long as the temperature's right it will be fine, as frost can retard the growth."

The pitch at the new stadium has had a number of teething problems since being unveiled nearly three years ago. At first there was an algae bloom in the corner of the ground between the Cusack and Canal sides. This was eradicated in time for last season but complaints about the surface were still common.

McKenna is hopeful that such major operations on the grass surface will be a thing of the past once the current work is completed. "Every micro-climate is different and Croke Park has its own so you need a regime that's modified specifically for it. I believe we're getting close to the optimum surface that won't need any further radical alteration."