Suncorp Stadium boss Allan Graham talks Turf

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The surface on sun Corpse Stadium. Money Around fift per
cent of it has been replaced after the grass has
taken a hammering from concerts and spawning events and wet
weather events since January. Joining us is now the boss
of sun Corps Stadium. Allen Graham. Good morning, Allan. How
are you mate?

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yeah? Really good mate? How are you good?

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Thanks so Gooday to Marty Hello.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
How are you doing?

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yeah good? Thanks money now.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Marty asked me a question a little earlier, Allan, about
what type of grass the turf that they use on
sun Corpse Stadium. I said, well, it's prepackaged. Maybe I'm wrong.
I don't know what type of turf do they use.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
It's not the thought of turf your boy from Bunning.
We actually have it, especially produced. It's a system that
is used in a lot of stadiums around Australia and
specifically designed to be able to play as soon as
you lay it. So it's a lot of synthetical re
enforcing in it and that allows us to be able

(00:56):
to lay this week and play on Thursday night.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
Yeah, because that's what's my quest. And having laid turf myself,
well not myself, but somebody else did, and I looked
after it, I knew we had to stay off it
and I'm like, well, if you put the turf down,
how are the boys is running on there again this week?

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yeah, it is totally different, but it's it's a variety
of coach And then we oversay that with rye grass
in window because coach doesn't do too well in winter
in when you have in Bridgeman I should say so,
So we generally had rye grass that we would start
planning during the window season.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Martin's is a little bit smaller than some.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
Well it is a little just just slightly, but I
mean it does it actually deter what is it lawn grub?
Because I know a lot of turf it's low grub
and you wouldn't want that in your turf starting.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Look, that's one of the challenges our ground stuff always had.
There's lots of diseases that can impact on Thursday, and
there's so many applications they put on turf during the year.
But you know, our guy Met Oliver, he's amazing and
he keeps an eye for all those sorts of things.
Where he needs to, he'll he'll apply some pesticide or

(02:05):
whatever else. Might be needed to fertilizer, you name it.
He's got all the tricks.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
Well many Marty was just asking earlier to Allen about
you know, when you do concerts and you put those
boards down, do they affect the turf and everything of
some called stadium both that amount of weights of all
people walking around.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
Yeah, the people aren't too bad, and generally that we
can leave those down for five to six days without
any any great damage because they do sit a little
bit above the turf. They've got pads underneath, so they're elevated,
they've got slots in them, and it helps with things
like ordering and their circulation. Okay, so you know five
or six days you can generally get by without any

(02:43):
any any major damage. You might get a little bit
of burning, particularly during the hot, hot weather. They might
around the edges, some of the edges might send the
grass a little bit, but the rule that doesn't really
affect the structure of the quality process. It's a big process.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
Big weekend coming up to Alan. You've got the women's
start of Origin on Thursday night. You just mentioned that
a little earlier, and also the Magic Round with eight
hour year old games coming up as well.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
What's that going to do to it?

Speaker 1 (03:10):
So if you're gonna have to relad again next.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
Week, hope not. Now. Look, I think you know we're
normally we wouldn't have to lay, but we've had so
much rain this year, as everyone knows, and and money.
I'm sure if you had, you know, a couple hundred
people running around your yard every weekend with all that rain,
you probably have to replace a few times too. You're

(03:32):
not wrong, Yeah, but we're hoping that, you know, everything
will go well. There seems to be going well. Guys
are pretty pretty confident with the way it's going to
turn out, and we should be fine for the nine
games over the next four days. And that's a that's
a pretty big challenge in itself. There's not a lot
of stadiums that can handle that. But I think we'll be.

(03:53):
We'll be in good jack.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
On the weekend when I'm watching the foot, all right,
I'll be having to look and see how look much?
Thank you mate?

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah? Absolutely, Alan Grime you legend. That's where people are
talking about