Rugby:International Rugby Board chief executive Mike Miller tonight insisted that Saracens' plans for a plastic pitch are "good for the game". The English club have announced they will play on artificial turf next season if proposals to refurbish and relocate are approved.
The IRB have been working with football’s world governing body Fifa in the development of artificial pitches. Miller believes they will improve the sport as a spectacle and could lead to safer scrummaging.
“We have been working for a number of years with Fifa to come to a standard for artificial surfaces around the world so you can play rugby and football on them,” Miller said. “Unfortunately here people have the image of QPR in the 1980s. It is a totally different thing now.
“It looks like a grass pitch now and it plays as well as a grass pitch, if not better. I think it is good for the game. There is an argument that the southern hemisphere play more attractive, attacking rugby because they can keep their footing and throw the ball around.
“Here (in Europe) you have the heavy pitches and so it makes it a bit harder to do that. Will it change that? Maybe. It will be interesting to see. There are no injury issues. We have done studies over the years and there are no differences in the injury rates or types of injuries.
“Scrummaging on them is fine. If you look at some of the grass pitches and the way they cut up, this is better than a lot of situations.”
The introduction of artificial pitches will no doubt find opposition among the traditionalists, for whom playing rugby under a closed roof is also a betrayal of the sport’s ethos.
Miller is prepared for opposition to the pitches but it would seem inevitable that a top-tier test match will be played on one of the surfaces before too long.
“People don’t necessarily like change but once they see the change they can’t imagine what it was like before,” he added. “How you play is not just determined by the conditions. It is also determined by the talent you have on your team — how big your pack is, how fast your wingers are, different skills and also adapting to what the other team is doing.
“I don’t think it will end up with one homogenous game. The good thing about rugby is you can play it many different ways and still win and still have a good spectacle. It just gives you a better stage to play it on.”