HAWTHORN coach Alastair Clarkson has spoken of the challenges of playing at ANZ Stadium, after star forward Jarryd Roughead was lucky to escape with a minor injury on Saturday night.
Roughead slid into the fence behind the goals during the third quarter after kicking a goal, and had his jumper torn and back scratched by exposed bolts in the concrete in front of the stadium fence.
While Clarkson denied his club has any problems with the venue, he says the use of the ground by both the NRL and AFL in consecutive nights, is a major issue.
The Swans and the Hawks played on the oval less than 24 hours after Parramatta and Canterbury met in an NRL fixture on Friday night.
"It's not ideal. The AFL do an outstanding job in terms of making sure the ground is as good as it can possible be, but this venue has got it's challenges," Clarkson said post-match.
"Playing rugby league the night before, and you've got to replace grass, pull back stands, do all that sort of thing, it's hardly an ideal preparation for a top level clash between two really, really good sides.
"It makes it really difficult and I guess that's why everyone's preference is the SCG rather than this oval when it comes to playing in Sydney.
"What they were able to do from yesterday afternoon until today was outstanding, but the actual constraint that is applied to the AFL and the ground staff to try and prepare an oval is enormously difficult on such a tight turnaround.
"We don't mind playing at this venue, the challenge is combining the two codes, and if rugby league want to have this ground and we play all our games at the SCG then that might be the best option for our code.
"This is a hiccup, we're lucky nothing more serious happened."
Swans coach John Longmire had less to say on the matter, but did admit that Roughead's incident was concerning.
"I didn't see it so it's hard for me to comment, I just heard it as I was coming in here, it sounds terrible if that's the case," Longmire said.
ANZ Stadium officials released a statement after the match, saying they were launching an investigation into the incident involving Roughead.
"The bolts are used to secure an emergency fire extinguisher at the southern end of the arena and sit behind the fence line for all events other than for AFL games," the statement read.
"When the fence line was moved back to accommodate the required five-metre zone behind the goals for this game, the holding bolts were exposed.
"Stadium officials are working with the AFL to investigate this matter.
"Any risk to player safety is clearly unacceptable and is taken very seriously by Stadium management."
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