With the generous funding from the St Bernard's College, our Hilbert Oval has had a major renovation.The wicket table has been laser levelled, raised and had roll out instant Santa Anna couch applied to 5 of the 6 wickets.
The 6th wicket has been seeded with normal RYE grass for use whilst the couch grass beds into the merry creek clay soil.
Resulting from this will be a significantly improved cricket playing wicket for both the College teams and the Old Collegians.
Previously many of the College games have had to be rescheduled onto the Murphy oval or off site as the quality of the wickets was below standard. This renovation will enable our College teams to play on above standard wickets - safer in terms of reliable bounce and competitive with more harder wearing grass. The Old Collegians club has been criticised for the last 2 years for sub standard wickets.
The better, more consistent and harder wearing grass will be a much improved benefit through the football season whilst the raising and flattening of the wicket deck should reduce the amount of water held due to the poor natural drainage.
Our club aims to play round 2 on the Hilbert Oval with the couch wickets being used from Round 3 or 4.
