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TOKYO: The Australian Rugby Union was last night demanding last-minute alterations be made to the surface of the pitch for tonight's Bledisloe Cup Test due to concerns the Wallabies and All Blacks players will get seriously injured because of a dangerous in-goal area.
On arriving at the National Stadium yesterday for the Wallabies captain's run, ARU officials - including chief executive John O'Neill, deputy Matt Carroll and high-performance manager David Nucifora - were shocked to see a minuscule in-goal area.
At each end, the width of the grass in the in-goal area was little more than a metre, with the rest of the area, which is part of an athletics track, covered with artificial turf that is not cushioned.
The concern is that players could get seriously injured falling on the AstroTurf while trying to score tries or field high balls. As a result, ARU and Wallabies team officials, including manager Phil Thomson, have called for the in-goal area to be changed before kick-off tonight.
Ouch … AstroTurf is laid out over the athletics track, and it forms part of
the in-goal, as shown in this photo taken yesterday.
They have asked for more turf, or padding, to protect the players. Another concern is that there is a large light tower close to the try line at one end, which a player could collide with. Officials said last night they were struggling to get the message through to the local officials, and were stunned to be told no grass could be brought in, because it was not grown in Japan. They asked how, in that case, the actual playing surface was so lush, but the message was lost in translation.
The ARU's concerns over the state of the ground are understandable given that prop Matt Dunning seriously injured his leg in the final match of last year's northern hemisphere tour on a substandard Wembley pitch, which cut up badly wherever a scrum was set.
O'Neill was unimpressed with how the local officials had ignored earlier requests to fix up the in-goal area.
''We've been aware for some time about the dimensions of the field being an issue,'' O'Neill said yesterday. ''Discussions have continued over several months to accommodate the dead-ball area with a seamless piece of astroturf. The problem looking at it today is that it is not seamless. It's carpet squares, where the joins are not satisfactory.
''We're trying to find a solution before tomorrow. We're looking for them to reinstate their commitment to having a seamless piece of AstroTurf. In the absence of that, with the agreement of the All Blacks, we'll have to look at a shorter dead-ball line, with some type of protective material. But at the moment, talking to the officials via interpreters is a challenge.''
O'Neill said the team was accustomed to playing on unusual pitches, but dangerous ones were unacceptable. ''We've played on games such as Padua [in Italy] last year, which was a soccer ground, and they were shorter than the ideal dimensions of a rugby ground,'' O'Neill said. ''But you only have to look at the pitch here and you'd realise that if a player was going backwards and his sprigs got caught in the seam, it could be very dangerous. There is also the risk of skin burns.''
Wallabies coach Robbie Deans said the ''in-goals were quite short, but we'll be quite happy to get there''.
Wallabies centre Adam Ashley-Cooper added that the players were preparing for skin burns.
''I tell you what, there is going to be some bark taken off tomorrow night,'' he said. ''Both the All Blacks and ourselves love to use the depth of the in-goal, with little grubbers in behind, so it's going to be interesting. You've got a metre to dive, and anything past that I will definitely be putting the ball down with two hands.''
The issue should not affect Tokyo's plan to host more high-profile Tests among southern hemisphere teams. O'Neill later stressed that Australia were eager to play more matches in the Asian region rather than North America, especially after the success of Hong Kong hosting a Bledisloe Cup Test last year.
O'Neill also agreed with his New Zealand counterpart Steve Tew that playing 15 Tests in a season was too many. He thought playing about 12 internationals a year was wiser.
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