Hamilton Old Boys Rugby Club is one of the oldest and most successful rugby clubs in the Waikato region of New Zealand. As an amateur club, they train rugby players from as young as 5 years old with many players going on to represent the two professional Waikato clubs who are based in the adjacent Waikato Stadium. Over the years the club has produced 8 All Black players and 22 New Zealand representatives.

With such an outstanding track record of success it is essential for the club to provide the best possible training facilities. However, Hamilton receives almost 1.2 metres of rainfall annually and this has a big impact on maintaining training pitches in good condition year round. The club had a large indoor training facility but the quality of the playing surface was so poor that players were reluctant to use it regularly.

To overcome this problem, the Old Boys Club carefully researched the market. Having considered the options they decided that GreenFields was the only company that could deliver the best possible solution. GreenFields was commissioned through their local partner, Wilkinson Civil, to supply and install a new artificial turf playing surface and this was successfully installed over a two week period in July 2010. The GreenFields Real RT 65 Slide Pro Turf is perfect for indoor usage and can withstand the rigours that rugby delivers. The Club was impressed by the benefits of GreenFields artificial turf and, in particular, the ability for rugby players to wear boots and to tackle to IRB standards on the surface.

In addition to the Hamilton Old Boys Rugby players, the indoor training facility is now also used by the Waikato Chiefs who play in the Super Rugby League and Waikato Mooloo’s who play in the ITM Cup. The surface is also marked out for volleyball, netball and indoor soccer usage making it an all round community training facility and helping the club to generate an income from the facility.

Robert Mathews, Director of GreenFields Pacific, said, “The quality and versatility of our artificial turf and its ability to withstand the rigours of rugby training has helped to deliver an exceptional training resource for the Old Boys Club and for the Hamilton community. We are proud to have helped turn this underused and poor quality facility into one of the best and largest indoor rugby training facilities in New Zealand.”