There should be hockey on Gonville's new turf towards the very end of next week. That clearly means that the Manawatu League matches hoped for Wanganui this weekend will continue on the Palmerston North turfs. Hockey Wanganui spokesman Don McCullum says the turf is about 90 percent complete, but the poor weatherreport through to the end of the week almost certainly meant it would not be ready for play. "There's probably about three days' work left," McCullum said. "And that's not going to be before the weekend, because it's going to rain." The problem is that work cannot start each day until the partially-completed turf dries out completely ? in yesterday's case from the overnight rain, and for the previous three days, from the morning dew. McCullum says that has usually not been until around mid-day. "Then the dew comes down about 5pm, so they're working in about a four-five hour window." All areas outside the field itself are left to do, then the circles need to be cut in, and then the whole field has to be sanded. "So it looks like next weekend, weather permitting. And that's the best case scenario ? and it would be our normal starting date, anyway, for the grades outside the Manawatu competition." Tech Old Boys (men) and Collegians and Ratana (women), are the teams involved in the top grade. At this stage the Ratana-Collegians match is pencilled in by Manawatu for the Wanganui turf at 1pm, May 20. "So we aren't off track for our own competition, but we are for the other one." Wanganui's primary schools competition is due to start on Wednesday, May 24. McCullum's says the delays in the completion of the job have not caused any dispute with the contractors. "It's not an issue. If we go back to date one, we couldn't order it until we had the money, we didn't have the money until quite late last year; we pre-booked and confirmed as soon as we had the money ? and the whole summer (for the contractor) normally gets booked a year ahead. "I suppose the frustration is that they were two weeks late getting here from their Nelson job ? which was no fault of this contractor.
