Moi?Cockatrice wrote:So out of curiosity what is your view on UR not putting down the ground cover in advance
of the predicted frozen/snowy weather? Do you think the grounds man didn’t do it because he knew it would rain and everything would be alright? Or because he was an ass?
To put down the covers would have been 8 days before match day. I have seen those covers, and contrary to Baggy's assertion that they are like bin liners, they are quite heavy duty jobbies.
If those were needed for 7-8 days, I would suggest (but I'm no expert) that they would do considerable damage to the grass in that time. They would have obscured the light - totally - and upon removal, the grass would in my opinion be considerably etiolated.That is before you consider possible fungal infections of the soil from the change in oxygenation at the surface.
All of that would have been a worthwhile price to pay/risk if the cold snap was to last for a week, but given that the forecast, even allowing for a day or three margin of error suggested to me that the covers would be unnecessary. I would expect the snow to provide an insulation on the ground to prevent freezing and of course it does allow penetration of light and gases so no etiolation or potential fungal infections. That could have caused a problem for the pitch for many weeks or even months.
The problem comes when you get rain followed by another freeze as happened last night as that allows water to penetrate to the surface and then freeze - but (for me) that was a risk worth taking -probably less than the risks from covering for a week. Now the rain is here and no more (apparent) risk of freezing, it looks as if all should be good for Friday night.
Of course you are correct that if the match was for tonight, it would not have been playable, but then it never was about tonight. If it were, the covers would have been a no-brainer.
Of course, my thoughts on this are irrelevant - it is the consideration of the groundstaff that is important. If we got caught out as happened before, they would rightly be castigated, but maybe I just prefer to wait until something happens before casting blame instead of doing so before hand and suggesting they got lucky.
It may be they did actually get lucky, or it may be they had it worked out to a tee. We'll never know .... but I've no doubt that some will still say they got lucky ....
You asked for an opinion - you got one, but as I say, I'm no expert. Then again I suspect that few on this forum are ..... on this particular issue.