The Sunday News
Mehluli Sibanda, Senior Sports Reporter
THE Bulawayo Metropolitan Rugby Football Board has started attending to the Hartsfield Rugby Grounds, with cutting of overgrown grass on both fields underway.
Heavy rains left the country’s sole rugby stadium in a bad state as grass had overgrown on the field, while shrubs had grown on some of the terraces.
BMRFB chairman, Craig Change said the heavy rains had made it impossible to cut the grass because the field was too wet and as soon as the wet spell stopped, work started.
“Naturally when it rains, the grass grows. Maybe the question is why we have let it grow to that level. Reason is the field got too wet at a point because of the sustained rains and when we consulted some specialist in that area, we were told that mowing using a tractor there is unwise, we rather wait for the grounds to be drained a bit as the tractor will damage them if they deployed whilst it’s that wet. Acting on that sound advice, we waited for the rains to subside and now we are back to maintaining our fields,’’ Change said.
When a Sunday News crew visited Hartsfield on Friday, workers were busy working on the B-field while a tractor was cutting grass on the main pitch. Those working on the two fields had taken a break on Saturday and will resume work on Monday. Change expects the fields to be clear by Wednesday.
As a way of lessening the expenses of maintaining the fields, the BMRFB has invested in its own grass cutting equipment.
“The board has bought mowers and trimmers to minimise the cost of maintaining the fields as it has relied on hiring tractors which come at a cost,’’ said Change.
Rugby, just like football has not yet been given the green light to resume at domestic level as part of measures in place in the country to curtail the spread of the coronavirus with only sports classified as low risk given permission to restart.
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