How can our home pitches be in such a condition? It’s all down to irrigation. Lucan Sarsfields Senior Pitch has 54 sprinter heads with 24 of those buried on the playing surface itself with the remainder around the perimeter of the pitch.

A computerised system drives water from a 100,000 litre underground holding tank, with the help of an 11,000 watt motorised pump, to each of these sprinkler heads. This is done through the night. The whole solution was installed by Aquaturf who continue to assist us when needed.

Where do we get that volume of water? Several hundred feed underground we have a well, and as the water level in the holding tank drops, a 2.3kw pump refills it from deep underground. This water is untreated and not fit for consumption. We never use treated water from the public system to irrigate pitches.

Our juvenile pitch is not so sophisticated with no inbuilt irrigation system. As the drought started to kill off the grass on this pitch we employed some very long hoses and a number of sprinklers which have to be moved around the pitch manually (volunteers always welcome). This manual system uses water from the same holding tank.

Our thanks to all the volunteers who maintain the facility to such an impressive standard.