Should countries be fined for poor pitches?

The pitches at the Aviva, Stade de France and Millenium are all atrocious. There are enough problems with scrums without making it impossible.

Should the IRB make it a requirement that good pitches are provided by the top level countries for internationals? It is probably too early to switch to artificial pitches but with technology such as the Desso Grassmaster, as employed at Twickenham, there is no excuse for poor pitches.

Yes.

Things that make the farce that is the modern scrum, a laughing stock:

an unsympathetic (or plain ignorant) ref
the CTE call
the hit
the feed
too many potential penalty offences

and a pitch made of green treacle.

You cant compare Twickemham, a stadium fully dedicated to rugby, to multi-purpose stadiums such as the stade de france were one week you get a lady gaga gig and next a rugby game.

Why not fine countries for bad weather, poor transport in/out of the stadium or bad beer?

whocares

Surely the fact that the stadium is used for other things is France's problem. If they can't provide a decent pitch there, then find somewhere they can.

I think France should be sorted out, the pitch against Wales was shocking and the calling off of the Ireland game was amazing, to think an international stadium doesn't even have under soil heating, especially with the money at stake and the amount of people who pay to see games, and the transportation involved.

An awful idea that would constantly fine emerging nations...!

Undersoil heating? Its so rare that its needed in France I see no issue. One cal of in how long?

Murreyfield - now that needs the undersoil heating

thomh wrote:whocares

Surely the fact that the stadium is used for other things is France's problem. If they can't provide a decent pitch there, then find somewhere they can.

True but takes to time and a lot of money to build a state of the art stadium! Which is what the FFR intends to do anyway. As pointed out there is no economic incentive to build an undersoil heating. They should just forbid evening kick-offs.

I think that there is a bit of short-termism underpinning the OP.

However, if the matter is a bit more climatical than just weather then:

a. National RUs maybe should be made responsible for pitches by implementing reasonable measures to control rubbish pitches.

and

b. People should maybe consider the merits of jetting the globe and driving the highways to get to games which they could see better on TV.

maestegmafia wrote:An awful idea that would constantly fine emerging nations...!

That is why I said they should fine top level nations. Anyway, I suspect most emerging nations have better pitches than Wales, France and Ireland.

whocares wrote:You cant compare Twickemham, a stadium fully dedicated to rugby, to multi-purpose stadiums such as the stade de france were one week you get a lady gaga gig and next a rugby game.

Why not fine countries for bad weather, poor transport in/out of the stadium or bad beer?

But I think murrayfield has lots of gigs too, never seen the pitch causing any probs there at scrum time.

Fines for poor pitches is a good idea.

IRB should also fine stadiums that are miles away from city centres, have no atmosphere, seats so far from the pitch that you need binoculars and/or capacities of less than 70,000.

People have paid good money to watch rugby and have a right to expect a decent day out.

Yes but only if they fine countries for putting out poor sides consistently.

I think Wales should be fined for having Hookers who cant throw the ball in straight