New World Cup turf provides significant water savings in New Zealand
Interview: Hymie Gill, Former Black Sticks player and Pathway Manager for Otago Hockey.
Hymie Gill has spent a lifetime in hockey as a player and coach around the world. Capped 79 times by the Black Sticks, he then became a professional coach and has been developing the game for 25 years. His hockey career took him from New Zealand to England, Italy to Belgium before returning home to Dunedin where he is currently the Pathway Manager for Otago Hockey.
In 2024 the club upgraded its playing surface at Logan Park to the Poligras Platinum World Cup turf. One year on, we caught up with him to talk about what impact the new turfs have had on Otago Hockey.
Hockey has taken you all over the world. Tell us more about your hockey journey.
Hockey has been a staple in my life. I started playing as a kid and was called up for 79 tests for the Black Sticks before becoming a professional hockey coach in the early 2000s. I started my coaching career as the Development Officer at North Harbour Hockey in New Zealand while still playing. I then spent five years playing and coaching hockey at Braxgata HC, Herakles HC and Temse HC in Belgium before returning to New Zealand in 2007. I worked as the Performance Coach for Hamilton Midlands Hockey and subsequently the Development Coach at Waikato Hockey.
In 2016 I moved to Whangarei and became Development Manager for Northland hockey which was a great three-year experience.
What brought you home to Dunedin?
Ultimately, I had the opportunity to be the Pathway Manager for Otago Hockey so my hockey journey has come full circle.
I love being back in Dunedin, it such an awesome city and there are so many talented athletes playing and studying at the University. It’s just fun to be apart of this environment.
What does your role involve?
As Otago’s Hockey Pathway Manager I look after the representative programs from all ages from U10 to adults. I’m responsible for appointing coaches and managers, upskilling the coaches and managing all the logistics.
My role is connected to the national team as we have four players who have broken into the Black Sticks set-up. I work with them, integrating their New Zealand program into their club training. Dunedin is the regional training center for the New Zealand program, so I regularly train young players to help them become the next generation of Black Sticks.
What impact has the turf upgrade had at your training facility in Dunedin?
We installed two Poligras Platinum World Cup turfs at our sports hub in Logan Park in March 2024 and the new turfs are awesome. To have the surface developed for the 2026 World Cup in the Netherlands and Belgium, on our doorstep, is great.
The turfs played brilliantly from day one. The improvement has been massive, both from a performance and environmental point of view. The water tanks we had around the ground would regularly be empty because of the irrigation requirements of our old turfs. Sometimes there would be no water available for the final games on dry days. Now the tanks are full all the time.
So you’ve experienced the play wet / play dry advantages of the World Cup turf?
Because it is so far south, Dunedin is wet a lot of the time during the winter hockey season so we haven’t really experienced playing on the turf when fully dry yet. But our water use and irrigation costs have significantly reduced.
Even if there have been several days without rain, the temperatures are cool and the water in the turf doesn’t fully evaporate like the old turfs. So it always has some atmospheric water on it and we’ve noticed that the water stays in the turf much longer than our old surface.
Because the moisture holds so well and for so long, the turfs play very consistently. Even in heavy rain, where the old turfs would flood, these turfs perform much better with no adjustment to the drainage.
“Our new turfs have allowed us to make big strides forward from a performance, environmental and financial point of view due to reduced water use. That’s a great benefit for every hockey club or facility.”
How have you adjusted your water usage?
These days, we don't water the turfs at all for junior hockey or in the evening for adult hockey.
Although we still irrigate the fields for premier adult hockey during the weekend, I think this is habit more than anything. The old-school approach is to stamp the turf and see if it splashes and we don't need to do that anymore. Old habits die hard but this will change over time.
Have you noticed any change in injuries or increased abrasion?
In a word, no. The players haven’t changed the equipment they use and we still use the same balls. On drier turf, the goalkeepers do find sliding out is not as easy but updating goalkeeping equipment to make it more rounded is a simple fix.
This is a relatively small adjustment required for the massive upside. The innovation has allowed us to reduce water usage at the top level while enhancing performance under dry or low water conditions. The fact that the turf is made with 80% sugarcane also makes it an appealing choice. It’s a big step forward in making hockey more sustainable and adaptable to changing environmental demands.
What would you say to other hockey facilities and training centers looking to upgrade their turfs?
Our new turfs have allowed us to make big strides forward from a performance, environmental and financial point of view due to reduced water use. That’s a great benefit for every hockey club or facility. Ultimately it makes the whole sport better.
Hockey turfs like the Paris Olympic and World Cup are essentially the next gen in dry turfs, and they represent a significant leap forward from traditional sand-based systems.
With the friction-reducing tech and Olympic-level fibres and tufting we have found them to provide playing characteristics much closer to fully irrigated surfaces. They also support the full range of modern hockey skills, including 3D skills.
Speaking of skills, how has the game changed since you were a player?
Well, I go so far back that I remember the offside rule being removed! But I think the auto-pass was the biggest change. This combined with the more recent ability to play the ball above the head, have made the game so dynamic, thrilling and fun and it’s great to see the surfaces evolving alongside these developments.
Where does hockey go from here?
In can’t say for sure but I am about to go to a tournament in Inner Mongolia, China with the New Zealand A team. How exciting is that?!
More about the Poligras Platinum World Cup turf
The new Poligras Platinum World Cup hockey turf combines the proven formulation from the Paris turf with a new friction reducing yarn shape. The combination further enhances hockey’s sustainability objectives to reduce carbon and water.
The new turf will still achieve the same level of elite playability when wet, but with less water and when dry, it moves the sport closer to an optimum playing performance.