Super League legend reveals pitch he hated playing on as he calls for it to be removed from the sport

There has been a lot of talk about pitches in Super League this year.

Salford Red Devils suffered an injury last week because Ken Sio fell down a pothole on their training pitch, Ian Watson has said that Huddersfield Giants’ two long term hamstring injuries were caused by changes to their training pitch and Hull FC’s pitch is set to be dug up at the end of Hull City’s season leaving them with six away games in a row.

The biggest one though has been the complaints about Wakefield Trinity’s pitch which is partly synthetic and caused some nasty cuts in the Catalans Dragons dressing rooms in Round One.

Now former Wakefield player Gareth Ellis, who is currently at Hull FC who take on Wakefield away this week, has spoken about 4G pitches revealing how nasty they are to play on and revealing that he would like to see them removed from the spot.

Ellis said this on The Bench podcast and said that he would put 4G pitches on the bench.

“It doesn’t bother me anymore but it did when I was playing, 4G pitches,” Ellis said.

“Widnes is the one that springs to mind. I didn’t score that many tries when I was playing but I remember making a break and I was going to score, no doubt I was going to score.

“Rhys Hanbury was chasing me and in my head I wanted to take a time out and say ‘Rhys, I won’t go under the posts but don’t make me dive to score this try.’

“I’d have happily gone in the corner to put it down and not gone under the posts but I didn’t want to dive for the try and have grazes down my legs for the next six months.

“He made me dive and it was one of them where your knee comes down first and you try to protect yourself. I scored though.”