Hong Kong Premiership Rugby Tests New 'State-Of-The-Art' Pitch

The Hong Kong Football Club’s new "state-of-the-art turf pitch" saw its first Premiership rugby action on Saturday, according to Sam Agars of the SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST. The pitch, which opened in September, "uses a combination of virgin rubber crumbs, Cool Plus yarn and a water retention product to combat the searing surface temperature common during the Hong Kong summer." Brian McLaughlin from Polytan, the company that installed the pitch, said, "What we have got for the first time in Hong Kong, and it’s one of the first ones in Asia, is we’ve added a product called Comfort Climate, which is a water retention sand-like product that you add into your mix. It’s in the infill in the field, it’s down below the rubber layer, and when you irrigate the field, it retains the water and cools the yarn over a period. It’s a 100 percent natural product." He added, "It's an expensive product, but very high-quality German manufactured rubber, not a recycled product" (SCMP, 10/20).