Home games at Featherstone : Sun May 05, 2019 9:22 pm  

I presume Castle Park was considered.

Re: Home games at Featherstone : Sun May 05, 2019 9:43 pm  

Lilfatman wrote:

I presume Castle Park was considered.

I presume all local options would have been considered first.

I believe some fans have been told Pitch Two isn't up to the required standard for rugby to be played on it.

I hope the club will get this sorted so that we have an assurance that no games will have to be played away from the Keepmoat complex in future seasons.

If this isn't done, it will without doubt affect future season ticket sales and won't best please many current fans.

Re: Home games at Featherstone : Sun May 05, 2019 9:45 pm  

Lilfatman wrote:

I presume Castle Park was considered.

This was raised last year I believe and the answer was that they have their main pitch under renovation as well at this time of year. Thus ruling out playing there.

Re: Home games at Featherstone : Sun May 05, 2019 9:52 pm  

Double Movement wrote:

I presume all local options would have been considered first.

I believe some fans have been told Pitch Two isn't up to the required standard for rugby to be played on it.

I hope the club will get this sorted so that we have an assurance that no games will have to be played away from the Keepmoat complex in future seasons.

If this isn't done, it will without doubt affect future season ticket sales and won't best please many current fans.

It will always be Mike that the pitch at the Keepmoat has to have the maintenance work. Perhaps this question of working around the fixture schedule in an effort to lesson the impact should be one that is raised at the next fans meeting with the club.

Re: Home games at Featherstone : Sun May 05, 2019 10:10 pm  

Moonshine wrote:

It will always be Mike that the pitch at the Keepmoat has to have the maintenance work. Perhaps this question of working around the fixture schedule in an effort to lesson the impact should be one that is raised at the next fans meeting with the club.

Playing on Pitch Two is not ideal but I think most of us can live with it.

At the next fans meeting, I will ask why Pitch Two hasn't been properly prepared in order for these games to be played there. The next meeting is on Thursday 23rd May. That's three days before we play W Wales again.

Re: West Wales Raiders (Home) - 1895 Cup - Sunday 5 May 2019 : Sun May 05, 2019 11:23 pm  

Why can't pitch two be an artificial playing surface?
Wouldn't that be the answer?
It is used for all sorts of things and grass is not up to that.
We could get used to playing Oldham on that too.

[Wanderer]

Re: West Wales Raiders (Home) - 1895 Cup - Sunday 5 May 2019 : Mon May 06, 2019 5:36 am  

Double Movement wrote:

There was plenty of disquiet about the movement of the two home games to Featherstone with more people telling me they wouldn't bother with season tickets for next season.

The club needs to get their heads around this and do whatever needs to be done to make sure Pitch Two is up to standard in the future. Fans should not be asked to move out of town for home games.

Yes, I too have spoken to a number of people who are far from happy with this decision.

If this plays out the way that it sounds like it will, the Dons will have significantly reduced support for these games which must surely have a potentially negative effect on the players / performance in fixtures which are against other promotion candidates.

Looking beyond that, people are stating that they already haven't (for this season) or won't be purchasing season tickets (for next season) due to fixtures being taken out of the town. This should be ringing alarm bells at the Club.

As I posted on another thread, the fixtures are not released officially until viewed / agreed by the Clubs and Club Doncaster know pretty much when the pitch won't be available for the Dons so some fixture reversals would surely be possible thus allowing us to play all home matches at the Keepmoat Stadium.

Re: West Wales Raiders (Home) - 1895 Cup - Sunday 5 May 2019 : Mon May 06, 2019 6:20 am  

Toronto Wolfpack arranged with the RFL to play a number of there away fixtures at the start of this season in a batch because the weather in Canada at that time of the year would probably be unsuitable for there home fixtures to be played there.
If the Dons know before the beginning of the new season the dates when the pitch at the Keepmoat would be unavailable due to maintenance work why can't they discuss this with the RFL & try to schedule a number of there away fixtures to be played during this period.

Re: West Wales Raiders (Home) - 1895 Cup - Sunday 5 May 2019 : Mon May 06, 2019 9:05 am  

GeoffRoebuck wrote:

Toronto Wolfpack arranged with the RFL to play a number of there away fixtures at the start of this season in a batch because the weather in Canada at that time of the year would probably be unsuitable for there home fixtures to be played there.
If the Dons know before the beginning of the new season the dates when the pitch at the Keepmoat would be unavailable due to maintenance work why can't they discuss this with the RFL & try to schedule a number of there away fixtures to be played during this period.

They probably did try to liaise with the RFL but playing no home games for a two month period is a poor outcome too.

Fans are creatures of habit. We need home games to be no more than three weeks apart at best. We don't want to have to play all our home games in the freezing cold of February and March with blank periods during June and July. It makes no sense financially to operate like this.

[Wanderer]

Re: West Wales Raiders (Home) - 1895 Cup - Sunday 5 May 2019 : Mon May 06, 2019 9:12 am  

Then pitch 2 has to be available when we aren't able to play inside the stadium.