HAVING enjoyed the experience – if not the result – of playing on Saracens’ artificial pitch at Allianz Park, Warriors centre Alex Grove is keen for more Aviva Premiership clubs to use them.

The Scotland international would love to see a 4G surface one day introduced at Sixways and believes it could lead to sides being able to play more attacking rugby.

When it was announced Saracens would be playing on the artificial pitch, there were initial concerns about the impact on players’ joints, but the feedback has been largely positive so far.

Grove said: “It is nice to play on a surface that is dry and with a dry ball – it is easier to play rugby and move the ball away from the contact area which, as a back, is a dream. We don’t want to have a game of pick-and-goes and scrums and line-outs, we want to play some rugby.

“One of the concerns were for players’ knees and joints, but all the feedback from physios and doctors has been positive and, if they’re pleased with it, hopefully a few other teams will follow suit.

“Maybe Worcester will have one in a few years’ time – we could ask Cecil (Duckworth) nicely to dig a bit deeper and have one put in at Sixways!

“When teams defend a scrum, they just try to disrupt the ball at source and, typically this season, we have won most of our scrums, but a lot of our ball has been disrupted at the base.

“From an outside back’s point of view, if we can get a really clean set-piece, it gives us a great opportunity to actually get some go-forward and implement some of our backs moves, which is what we want to be doing. Too often, we don’t get the opportunity to do that during games.”

Grove added: “I’d like to be playing a bit more attacking rugby. When the pace of the game stepped up against Exeter, we actually made quite a few line-breaks – probably more than they did.

“Where we need to be better as a side is our efficiency at the breakdown as then we’ll have more attacking opportunities come our way.

“If we can save ourselves from putting four or five men into the breakdown to win the ball back, then we’ll have more numbers in the back line ready to attack – it’s as simple as that. So, if those two or three guys clearing the breakdown can be very effective, we can start thinking of our next stage.”