Dangan pitches

youngrun

Hi , new to NUIG ,back in at the mature end of the student world...Have been a keen runner /athlete since school and use Dangan a lot - but I hear that there are plans afoot to remove the main grass training area for a closed off astroturf facility - anyone know if this is going ahead and when? Would be a pity to lose such an amenity , its in superb nick at present.

EmcD123

Its supposed to be up near the main pavilion ,its the pitch at the front but that pitch across the road from the hockey pitch which isn't nice to run on anyway due to the constant muck. There is still the rugby pitch ,soccer pitches and double gaa pitches though for running on most of which are empty all the time unlike that front pitch.
That where I was told its going anyway

youngrun

Thanks I thought that was location alright. The training pitch there is currently in top nick, albeit I guess it gets cut up in winter so I can see the need . It seems there are plenty of lands college has beside that could be used instead for astro pitches - ie to add to facilities rather than remove a natural amenity such as this .
Back in the day when it was UCG ( And Im now back second time round ! ) there were double the amount of playing fields and pitches , building creep has eaten into a lot of these. I think the campus will be down to 5 grass pitches after this one goes which is very poor provision for sports for the size of student base ,and in comparison to most colleges . An astro facility is unlikely to be available for outdoor sports such as athletics /cross country /Intervarsities xc events , archery and tag rugby and the mini rugby academy - all of which use the grass amenities currently .

Bogsnorkler

It's actually going to be a 4G training pitch rather than an astro pitch as far as I understand it. That pitch is a quagmire come December every year, with rugby and football being played on it 5 times a week.

From the team sports point of view it's a very welcome development (having had to regularly complete rugby training on the hockey pitch last year due to state of the pitch).

I actually don't know why or how people would run there from November-March, it's in ****e altogether.

youngrun

Fair points I can see the reasons and need for teams to have a year round facility .

I wonder will the likes of tag rugby in summer/spring, kids rugby etc still be facilitated , both got pretty big numbers for several months of the year April to September.
I wonder is the quagmire due to maintenance ?

Re running there it is actually perfect for cross country running training in winter and regularly used by college and the local City harriers club by both adults and kids

I guess there are plenty of undeveloped patches of land close by that could be designed /used for athletics/cross country training , must enquire with college powers that be , used to be able to hold intervarsities athletics and national and schools cross country events in Dangan but not any more.
Hard to please everyone I guess.