Exactly, nobody. That's my point. In fact te opposite has been said, hence the fans' annoyed reaction.

You wanna see what goes down dude



Seriously though i know its not but people saying stuff like under ground heating i crazy for a team that plays in France. I agree with putting covers over but to suggest they should have had under ground heating is extreme imo.

OK, let's start at the beginning and add a little perspective...

The winds come in Perpignan usually for 2-3 days, they've been here for 3 weeks at least, this has a negative effect on the grass, twofold, 1- it dries out the soil and 2 it "burns" the grass (like the wind attacking your face non-stop for 3 weeks, its not gonna be a pretty sight)

The ground isn't owned by the club, and the club have no say as to who the ground keeper is, they've been trying to get rid of the current guy for 2 years, so have no control as to what happens on the field at all.

Because reparation work has been needed since the last friendly, the club has not trained on the pitch, but at the local university in the hope that the pitch will have had the correct groundworks done to it, these have not been carried out by the ground keeper.

On Friday after the referee arrived in France he attended the stadium to look at the pitch and deemed the game playable.

Now the pitch was 95% playable on Saturday, what has happened is the ground was deemed by the Catalans to be too hard, so the ground keeper watered the pitch on Friday night after the previous pitch inspection by Bentham, because the ground ws hard, the water 'pooled' in certain areas and overnight froze, there was no concern at the time as the ground keeper thought these would melt and disperse as the sun melted them. The main area of concern was a 20 metre square (ish) area under the main stand (Bonzom), this area of the pitch did not get any sunlight so did not melt. Every other area of the pitch was playable.

It was at this time (around lunchtime) that Trent Robinson called Hull to say that he had concerns over the pitch, both coaches and CEO's attended a 2pm pitch inspection with the RFL officials and decided to call the game off. There was talk of taking it to the Aime Giral to play on Sunday morning but their pitch was worse with the ice than Brutus.

It is harsh on the fans that travelled over, but I got to the stadium yesterday at 1:30pm and left at 8:30pm after the club had looked at all options available to them. Yes it is a pain in the backside, but after speaking to the RFL today, it is clear that they feel all three parties were a victim of circumstances.

The ironic thing is that the pitch is probably harder in July and August than it was yesterday, it was just the pooling of the water that froze and didn't defrost that caused the issue. I have sent some pictures of the affected areas to the League Express, you will be able to see that the pitch was too dangerous to play on.

Hope that helps some of you to understand the reasonings as to why the game was called off, and for the record, one of the RFL bylaws states that the game can only be called off in the 24 hours preceeding the kick-off time.

Thats a very well informed comment and quite correct!!!

Nobody is questioning that the pitch was unfit and that it was the correct decision to call off the game. The main discussion has been about [iwhy[/i the pitch was unfit. It now seems clear that this was down to a serious error of judgement on behalf of the groundskeeper.

This is the part that I don't understand.

a) Why would water help to soften a frozen pitch in sub zero temperatures? Surely water will freeze and not melt in freezing conditions.

b) Shouldn't the groundsman know which areas will get sunlight on their pitch and which won't?

C'est la vie Tommy (with Gallic shrug of the shoulders).

it will more than likely get re-arranged for the weekend of 16th June, the England v Exiles weekend. As same with Leeds Rhinos v Wakefield Wildcats re-arranged game.

Hope this is the case.

Problem is that France could be playing a game the same weekend so would Catalans play the same day or within 24 hours?

do you know if france have a game that weekend ?

didn't think any fixtures had been released yet ?

waiting for the new coach to be installed etc

So despite the FACT the weather was already freezing not a single method was employed to help bring the temperature of the soil up to ensure the match went on. The suggestion that a groundskeeper was randomly hoping the weak winter sun would melt frost/ice in all areas is completely and utterly ridiculous. Do Club Catalans sit by and not oversee what is a very important aspect of the game, the most important bit in fact (no fit pitch, no game)
I'm not a groundsperson but logic clearly dicatates that the prevailing weather conditions would cause problems from a few weeks beforehand, that it appears that Catalans made not one single prior arrangement to counter the extreme weather conditions is ludicrous. That they left the pitch to one man (with little to no knowledge of pitches in cold weather) whom they already have issues with leaves them being as much culpable as the groundsman's pathetic effort.

It's not been confirmed but I have read that they want a game that weekend, presumably against Wales, Ireland or Scotland.

I beleive that England v exiles will be a double header with England Knights v france taking place on the same day.

There is also the suggestion that the double headers could be played at the KC Stadium.

The international rules used to allow you to call your game off if you had 4 players on international duty so that could take out the both sides. Leeds and wakefield players could back up as could ours and the dragons, but there is the travelling issue to take care of.

If it is to be this weekend, then i would suggest that we reverse the fixtures, playing the dragons at home on the weekend of the games if they are both in the UK, and playing them away in mid august, despite the disadvantage of the extreme heat.

This means the catalans players could play for france on say the friday (with ours playing for England and exiles where selected), then versus us Midweek (Tuesday) and then stay in Hull to play the dobbins on the following Sunday (as scheduled).

Then only downside to this is that we would only have one home game left after 29th July and thats not whilst September 9th!!

How hard did knocker bump you?

Pray tell which aspect of what I've written is incorrect or false in any way?
Please show workings out

Ignore him mate he thinks he's the only one who knows anything about anything & nobody else should have an opinion.

We could play France as well if they want a game!



It wouldn't be the first time we've offered to play two games at the same time. Back in the early 1980's during one season we had a fixture backlog and the RFL expected us to play about 17 games in three weeks. Hull asked for an extension to their season, but weren't granted one, so we threatened to play two league games simultaneously on the same day. Unfortunately the RFL wouldn't allow it.



Funny thing is, our squad was so strong in those days we would probably have won both games.

Don't be so precious, you're as bad as him

I remember it well, April 1985. We played 10 games in 18 days, including three consecutive days and 5 games in 7 days.

And to think these days every Easter we hear each Coach moan about having to play two games in four days, on better pitches, with four subs, ten interchanges......

The FACT is that the weather at the time wasn't 'freezing' as such. The air temperature was around 4C without wind chill. And the FACT is that the pitch was cleared as fit to play on the Friday and would likely have remained so without further intervention.

You seem to have misunderstood the sequence of events. The groundskeeper was not relying on the sun to melt any existing ice - he (wrongly) assumed that it would prevent any ice forming when he watered the pitch. He clearly made a grave error of judgement leading directly to the abandonment of the game, and I would hope that he is censured at least. Trying to pin the blame on the Catalans club, when they don't employ the guy and have no direct control over him, is stretching things somewhat.

So, does anyone have any insight as to when the rearrangement will be made and announced?

Pick a card..........any card

I imagne both clubs and the RFL will be waiting to see how both teams get in the cup competition.