Suncorp Stadium debate hots up

[Dan]

Stadium debate hots up
By Barry Dick
03jul03

http://www.dailytelegraph.news.com.au/c ... 09,00.html

SUNCORP Stadium management yesterday defended the redeveloped ground's playing surface despite a high rate of knee injuries there and safety concerns raised by one Sydney NRL club.

Since the ground opened on June 1, there have been five medium to long-term knee injuries in three top-level matches at Suncorp compared with just six in 110 matches at other grounds.

The NRL's official "casualty ward" lists 17 players sidelined with knee injuries but six of them were injured at training, in pre-season trials or in the lower grades.

Suncorp Stadium chief executive Geoff Donaghy said he could not respond directly to the injuries lists but stressed no one who had used the ground had "raised any concerns" with stadium management about the playing surface.

He said "everyone from the Prime Minister down to the kids selling the hotdogs" had an opinion about Suncorp but the only people stadium management would listen to were those who used the ground.

"We can only be guided by the comments of the people who count - the people who are using the ground, including the players and the coaches, and not one of them has at any stage told us they have had concerns about the surface," Donaghy said. "We talk to the Broncos virtually every day and many of their players have played there three times and they have said nothing about the standard of the field."

On Tuesday the Sydney Roosters asked their doctor, John Orchard, to investigate the injury toll at Suncorp after three of their players - second-rower Craig Fitzgibbon, prop Peter Cusack and Brett Finch - picked up serious knee injuries in the 10-8 loss to the Broncos last Friday night.

The Roosters already had lost star centre Justin Hodges for the season when he tore his cruciate ligament in the first State of Origin match at Suncorp Stadium on June 11.

Roosters football manager Brian Canavan and one of the club's trainers, Craig Walker, went to the NRL's Fox Studio headquarters yesterday to use digital slow-motion technology to check the tackles in which the players had been injured.

Canavan said last night he hoped the "review" of the injuries would be completed by the end of the week.

Roosters coach Ricky Stuart and captain Brad Fittler joined the fray yesterday, saying the number of injuries at the ground could not be put down to "bad luck".

"I think it has gone past the unlucky stage," Stuart said. "I'd be very concerned about the third Origin game. I'd be very concerned if I was coaching the Brisbane team because they have got to play a lot more games there than just the rep games."

Fittler said the surface "had to be looked at". "There's too many injuries," he said. "It's surprising no one from Brisbane has hurt themselves."

Most players have gone out of their way to play down criticism of the playing surface.

The exceptions have been Newcastle fullback Robbie O'Davis, who missed Origin I after injuring his knee at Suncorp on June 1, and Cowboys skipper Paul Bowman, who succumbed to a knee injury in Origin I.

O'Davis described the playing surface as a "beach" while Bowman said it was the worst he had played on.

Donaghy said stadium ground staff had "worked around the clock" to improve the playing surface after finding "a considerable amount of sand had been applied to the field" in the late stages of the redevelopment.

"Since then we have removed 20 cubic metres of sand by rolling, spiking and coring and most people agreed the look of the ground had improved significantly between the Origin match and last week's Broncos-Roosters match," he said.

[Jeffles]

Interesting. First the Roosters reject sand being a part and now they do a backflip,. I don't know what to believe but Suncorp Stadium certainly has a lot to say for itself.

I've raised this before but who thinks this is an unfortunate result of politics mixing with sport? The ground was behind schedule all year and they "RUSH" an opening. Surely this rush has put players at risk because Premier Beattie wanted to show everything off on time and not have to reloacate such important events to his embarrassment.

Should the Qld Government be held more accountable?

[Egan]

Remember last year when all those injuries where occuring to the interstate teams when they came over from the east. They where talking about how hard subiaco is, but really it was a great playing surface and the injuries where just coincidental, nothing more then bad luck. The surface has nothing to do with injuries except it has been singled out. Unfortunately the Prime Minster was brought up, which has nothing to do with the surface, and the stadium staff have got to be commended for there media relations they have done with the rugby league mad eastern staters, which has resulted in some shonky journalism.

The ground watching the Footy Show has dried out considerably and looks in tip top shape. The footy commision was faced with the prospect of paying 750,000 to relay it, although rain is expected for the next week, with the Dockers and Eagles being barred from training on the ground.