Allianz Stadium
Overcoming Floods for Delivering a High-Performance Turf Surface
New South Wales

After nearly four years of work, the striking new 42,500-seat venue reopened with three matches across three codes in the space of five days. The NRL’s Roosters and Rabbitohs, who had played the very last game at the old stadium (the 2018 NRL Preliminary Final) prior to its demolition in early 2019, had the honour of christening the new turf with a rematch in the final round of that year’s NRL regular season. The ground was then turned around to host the Wallabies v South Africa Rugby Championship clash just 24 hours later, with the Matildas playing an international soccer friendly against Tokyo 2020 Olympic gold medal winners Canada on 6 September 2022.

As well as being a home venue for the Roosters, Allianz Stadium is also home to the A-League side Sydney FC and the NSW Waratahs Super Rugby side. It was also selected as one of 13 venues to host games when Australia and New Zealand hosted the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.

For SPORTENG and our agronomist, John Neylan, who worked on the redevelopment, it was a little nerve-wracking as the first games were played on a new surface, particularly knowing the background to what had to be done to get the turf to the stadium. It was very pleasing to see the first union scrum set without issue, and the surface held up well overall for those first three games.

Evergreen Turf established the Matrix turf on the banks of the Hawkesbury River, west of Sydney. The turf consisted of a Santa Ana couch grass base with a ryegrass oversow. Unfortunately, the Hawkesbury region suffered three major floods in early 2022, and the pad on which the Allianz Stadium turf was being grown was inundated on each occasion. The last flood, on 5 July 2022, was only two weeks out from the planned turf harvest and represented the worst day of flooding in Hawkesbury in 44 years.

Once the waters receded, work in the turf began in earnest. The silt was removed by flooding the turf with fresh water and using a Super Sopper to lift the silt, which was then pushed off the turf area. This process was repeated several times to remove as much of the silt as possible. While cleaning the silt off the turf did place some stress on the ryegrass component, there was still an excellent root mass, which provided a very strong turf.

The turf was prepared for harvesting and transported to Allianz Stadium in late July 2022. Once laid, it was aerated with solid tines. Over the next five weeks, the turf was top-dressed and overseeded.

Prior to laying the turf, the SPORTENG team designed the irrigation systems to house all the valves in a single room, off the playing surface. This design was important from an OHS perspective, as it removed the need for irrigation pits within the playing surface. It also facilitated ease of operation, with all valves housed in a single location, making the irrigation system easier to manage.

The stadium's grand opening in late August 2022 included a community event and concert and activities on the playing surface. From an agronomist’s perspective, this was somewhat alarming, given the torturous process the turf had been through over the previous five months. The turf, however, performed exceptionally well and was ready for its opening match between the NRL’s two traditional rivals in a Friday night sellout.

With the Wallabies and Matildas playing matches in the days following the NRL, it was certainly a baptism of fire for the new surface and a superb effort by the Evergreen, Allianz Stadium and SPORTENG teams to get it to a state where it was ‘ready to go’.

Allianz Stadium's sports field surface profile once the turf installation has been completed. 

To read more about the challenges and successes of this project, download our complete white paper on the Allianz Stadium Turf Redevelopment here.

Additionally, you can explore our approach to dealing with sports fields impacted by natural disasters in another insightful case study on how we help mitigate such challenges in the future. Read more about our disaster management strategies here.