Mainly fine weather in Napier over the next few days is expected to enable laying of the new hybrid turf at McLean Park to start late this coming week.
The Napier City Council hopes laying of hundreds of rolls of turf prepared at a specialised site at Pukekohe will start on Thursday.
It will take about 10 days with about 10 truckloads a day as contractors near the end of a four-month project aimed at having the park bedded-in and ready for Hawke's Bay Magpies Mitre 10 Cup National Provincial Championship rugby on the first weekend of September, and for a possible five-day cricket international during the summer.
The project of drainage replacement and laying of a futuristic new turf began on April 9, three days after a Hurricanes Super Rugby match at the start of April after drainage failure caused the abandonment of one-day international cricket match between New Zealand and Australia in February 2017.
It included excavating the oval to a depth of 45cm, hundreds of truckloads in and out as soil was taken to be laid on the foreshore reserve beside State Highway 2 between Napier and Awatoto and 5000 cubic metres of sand was moved in from outside Hawke's Bay and blended on site during the laying of the new drainage.
Including a lift-out centre block and drop-in cricket pitch, it will have seen over 3000 truckloads in-and-out of the gates before the completion of the project by Australian company HG Sports Turf, which laid its turf at such stadiums as the MCG in Melbourne, the ANZ Stadium in Sydney, and the Wellington Regional Stadium (Westpac Stadium).
Heavy rain over two days in June did nothing to holdup the project.
A fine but cloudy weekend is forecast for Napier with some showers possible tomorrow and over the next three days, with fine and sunny weather forecast for Thursday and Friday.