Close-up, the pitch looked very unnatural. As a spectacle, it was played at a real pace, and so I can see the attraction of it.

Watching it back on television, we complained about it at half time, with a lot of players having grazed knees. I was looking out for that during the second half, and there were a lot of players with visible grazes on knees and elbows, and more than one player with blood running from their knees.

Hmmmm. Not sure.

Said from day one that this pitch should not have being allowed in SL or any other RL stadium for that matter

Is it 100% fake? It looked it but I thought someone had said on here it was a mix of real grass too?!?

No thats Huddersfield I think?

it looks good on tv and the game was played at a good pace has others have said plenty of cut knees and elbows i reckon widnes will change there name to the widnes scabs after a dozen games on there.

the big issue for me was that players couldnt stop and turn on the pitch too good and there were at least two occasions when the ball took a very unusual bounce on both occasions it looked certain that tries would be scored had the ball followed its course.

Can't blame Mathers for the first try, the ball didn't half slow it's pace.

It's a rugby ball!! Unusual bounce is part of the game. If anything the ball should have bounced more 'normally' as the pitch is 100% flat.

The jury is still very much out on the pitch. It's obviously the focus of attention so last night in incredibly cold temperatures all grazes were put down to the pitch. Whose to say that these wouldn't have occurred on a normal pitch in the same freezing temperatures. It didn't get above 0degress all day yesterday over here with much colder temperatures during the darker hours of the day.

Likewise, the first injury that happens at our place will lead to more scrutiny.
I say give it a full twelve months and see how it goes.

In the same way that twice our players overshot a bouncing ball in a situation otherwise certain to lead to a try.

correct we was sat directly in line with mathers and in real time it made him look slow on the turn, watching it on the reply on the screen you could see his footing wasn't right to turn and clear the ball away

it looked a lovely surface but I wouldn't like to be playing on it

Thing about the pitch visting teams only have to play on it once and suffer a few grazes, Widnes have to play there every other week and train on the bloody thing. Should be banned and all pitches should be grass be they good or bad.

Dont know if it was the cold but most of the widnes team had long sleeves wonder if red elbows is a problem .I know some players wear them but nearly all the team did.

Go the Wakey website and go to the picture of Mathers and Southern celebrating. Click on it to make it big and check out the state of Mathers's knees and elbows. That is disgraceful from a pitch.

If there is an issue with cutting in elbows and knees it should be raised so in the least players can wear long sleeved sports gear.

If this Is the case this pitch won't lost long. Nothing wrong with good old grass.

Think bike leathers would be better

yes a rugby ball bounces but it has to be a true bounce not like the one that we saw last night.

if you think the players had a few grazes then fine but in a months time when the widnes team are missing a few players because of infection to burns on there knees and elbows maybe the opinions of a few may change because thats what the players will suffer from,the i pitch was supposed to not have any problems but on the evidence of 1 game suggests that its not an ideal surface for rugby but time will tell.

The IPitch hasn't any problems but it is not suitable really for Rugby.

I think cricket pads with high ankle boots may do the job.

Let's see the ipitch burn through those bad boys

I don`t know how much artificial pitches have changed since the `80s when there were a few in the wendyball league but if they haven`t improved the players have my sympathy this morning. I played on Oldham Athletic`s plastic pitch many moons ago, to counter the high bounce the pitch was sanded and sliding on it was tantamount to sliding on sandpaper. My knees, elbows and the palms off my hands were sore for days afterwards and took about 3 weeks to heal properly. Also in those days many Oldham players suffered knee & ankle joint injuries, which they put down to lack of give in the pitch. If things haven`t improved since those days then far from being to Widnes` advantage I can see it being somewhat of a handicap, at least we won`t have to worry about it for the rest of this season, barring a CC game.

We seemed to pick up a few injuries last night, they said before the game that dead legs could be caused by the pitch

Biggest issue for me seemed that players appeared to be very unsure of their footing at times ? will be interesting to see the reaction if some of the so called "star" players from the top 4 clubs start picking up injuries on that surface.Looks to have potential for serious ligament damage was my first impression.Hope this is not the case and players get used to it as season goes on,same pitch for both sides and obviously Widnes will have a lot more confidence in the surface than away teams on the first visit.Be interesting to see reactions as season progresses.Above all else though well done Wakey,great start and lets keep thhe momentum going !!

I’m glad we’ve got this one out of the way, it’ll be interesting when some of the ‘Big Boys’ go to town complaining of similar grazing. Although looking at the number of high shots, I bet there’s one or two with facial damage, never mind cut knees.

When the players were trying to turn and go in the opposite direction, it almost looked like slow motion. It was noticeable for their first try when Mathers turned to knock the ball dead, the disallowed Winterstein try when Isaac John turned to try and reach the ball and also the disallowed try when Ah Van held our player back. All players involved looked like they had to fully stop before turning and running again.

On the subject of grazed knees and elbows, players are going to have to wear skins or under armour. Either that or Vaseline up like Jim Leighton!

Awful surfaces to play on!

In all the years I've played sport I've played on that kind of surface only once. I grazed/burned my knee and ankle and it ended up with getting a severe infection and my ankle swelling to the size of a tennis ball!!

I've played hundreds and hundreds of times on grass pitches, both hard in winter and summer and never had anything like, so I don't buy into the argument of getting similar cuts and grazes on grass pitches aswell.

Just happy it's out of the way for us and a great performance and very positive start to the season!!

Let's see what the young lads think of it after they play on today, there's lots of banter between some of them and the senior guys on what to wear

Mathers just put some pics on Twitter and it shows his legs are a right mess! This pitch just doesn’t look safe. The appropriate authorities should do a full investigation of the effects on the players that played. If it’s deemed not safe then it should go!