Tom Johnstone posts gory picture of what Wakefield’s new pitch did to his legs

As part of the stadium redevelopment at Wakefield Trinity, they have a new pitch which marries an artificial turf with the real thing.

However, Catalans Dragons coach McNamara revealed its gory consequence for his players after their win over Trinity in the opening round of Super League.

He said after the game:

“It was a pretty tough game on a pitch that took skin of your legs. The boys there, their legs are red raw. It’s an issue. It’s an issue for Wakefield moving forward for their players. I haven’t seen anything like that before in terms of the blisters and blood that’s in there off that field there.”

When asked if he was a fan, he said: “No I’m not a fan, not if that’s the outcome. If the outcome is that, then definitely. It’s going to create issues I’m sure. We haven’t got to play on it again but they have to play on it every other week.

“I didn’t quite realise it was like that before we came. We’d seen pictures but it’s an issue.”

He then stated: “That’s the worst dressing room I’ve seen for skin taken off legs without a doubt.”

So, the pitch did damage to the Dragons but it was the Dragons’ former Wakefield star Tom Johnstone who did the damage to Trinity.

On the winger, McNamara said:

“Three class finishes, he has been renowned for it for all his career.

“He does the hard work as well. I spoke about that before the game. Said he didn’t have to score for him to have a good game.

“I thought our kicking game was good. It is start of the season, so you have to get basic things right and the kicking game is part of that.

“We spent a lot of time with Tom. We only had seven players for the first few weeks of pre-season. It was like being a school teacher in a class 30. You can’t give them all the attention they need but if there is only a few you can.

“It was an MOT, a once over, we said let’s prevent further injuries happening.”

Johnstone may need another MOT after he revealed the nasty consequences of the new turf on his leg with some nasty images of what the pitch did to his legs.

He shared them on Instagram as he joked “It’s 95% grass and we’re still whinging.”