Published on Wednesday, 8 May 2019 at 11:58:20 AM
Matt, you’re the lead contractor on this project. How’s it going?
Everything has gone, is going pretty well, obviously with all projects your get hiccups, and ups and downs and slow bits and fast bits, but yeah in general it’s all going very well.
And I mean, you’re obviously a local contractor so it’s great that we’ve managed to keep the work locally – how many people have you got working with you?
It varies from day to day, so at the moment we’ve got the turf people who’ve just finished with irrigation, there was the guys here doing the walls, and the earthmovers all in one hit the other day, plus the crane putting up the ah…
Oh the lights…
Yeah they’re pretty good aren’t they!
That’s awesome…
…and the electrician so I think the other day we had probably about 50 people on site in one hit, so those days it does get a little bit tricky with what’s going on but yeah look most of the time there’s only sort of a dozen or more, or a dozen or less I should say, being down here so…
You’re looking forward to finishing this job?
Yeah…
Your’e looking forward to playing footy on this field?
I wanna kick a footy on there!
So I can see, we can see these rolls of turf out there, I mean how much do those things weigh?
Um so they’re 680 kilo, roughly, give or take depends on how much moisture’s is in them.
Ok
Yep, yep, that’s about the standard weight for it so…
And how long are they?
14 meters, and 1.2 meters wide.
So what’s the process I mean it almost looks like you’re laying a carpet out there!
Yeah so look obviously we come along and we put the, well Pete puts the rolls out, um, where the boys are going to get to, they screed the ground off, they lay it, then you got guys on the rakes, they pull it in to each other, that closes the gap up, uh and then it gets a roll on top – obviously there’s a bit of quality control that’s got to go on for pieces that haven’t come up to spec, they’ll cut them out, new pieces in there, and give it a roll.
So that’s what the holes that we can see in the distance are?
All those holes you can see there yeah are pieces that they’ve cut out that they’re not happy with and they’ll um replace them and then give them a proof roll.
So it’s going to be fantastic to play on...
It’ll be beautiful.
And this soil! Tell me about the soil?
Ok, so the soil from Bornholm... Now, it took a long time to source the soil, I think I spent about 12 months looking for the right sand here and eventually found it at Bornholm so…
Just around the corner, basically.
Just around the corner.
And what’s so special about this soil?
Ok so it’s got to have a reasonable hydraulic conductivity which means the water flows through it into the subsoil drainage and then can take that moisture away out to main drains, and, and get it off the field completely.... and that was one of the problems we had with the last oval was that it was just sitting on the surface it wasn’t going through into any drainage, and so it just became a bog hole.
So all the bits we can see around the edges, all the bits that have been chopped off, they’ll be used to neaten up the edges and..
Yeah that’s right, and we’ve got little pieces that we can fill in, like even in front of the digouts here, there was none really allowed for because the oval’s in side of that so we can fill these areas in.
Excellent.
We can spread grass on drains running off the side so we can actually get a bit more growing in there to start with...
Oh, whose dugout is this?
That is the Away dugout...
That’s the away dugout? Gee!
This is the fancy one.
I know!
If you look down the other end, you’ll see ours which…
That sandpit down there?
Yeah that's the home so we’ll be in the sandpit...
Fantastic. Well at least we’re closer to, ah, changerooms and all the others...
That’s right yeah exactly! So yeah, look, it’ll all be wonderful once it’s finished, so...
So once the turf is down next Thursday, what happens next?
So it’s basically watering from then... When Pete ( makes a decision that the boys can go and run on there, they can start running on there, so probably about 4 weeks hopefully…
So are you going to have a little jog on it before they get on it?
I’m going to have to!
Yeah somebody’s got to make sure it’s up to specs!
Yeah, yeah... Actually the guys who bring the turf, they bring a footy with them!
I love it. They're testing it out as they go along
They’re testing it out just to make sure it’s right, so...
Fantastic. And you were pointing out, so there is already some, um, fertilising going on in the soil before the turf is laid?
Yeah that’s correct so we always put down... it’s just a pellet fertiliser like a dynamic lifter that goes down underneath the turf and then after that is sort of fertilises through the irrigation system or through the sprinkler system so...
Excellent, well Matt I mean this is an amazing, it’s a huge project for Denmark, well done.
Well it’s getting there but I’m not the only one involved.
No I know you’ve got a team.
There’s others involved down here so... It’s been a good team effort so yeah it’s been fantastic.
No it’s really good for the town as well I think.
It is, yeah and most people that have been here have been local or, or at least involved in putting the money back in locally so it’s great. It’s been fantastic.
Well thank you very much Matt.
No worries thanks Ceinwen.
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