Park gets upgrade to host Drua games
The Lautoka City Council has pumped in $650,000 to upgrade Churchill Park in preparation for the Swire Shipping Fiji Drua home game next week, Saturday.
The other two games, Drua is hosting at Churchill Park are against the Auckland Blues and Moana Pasifika on April 29 and on May 27 respectively.
Council chief executive officer Mohammed Anees Khan said the round 3 of the Shop N Save Super Rugby Pacific match is expected to host a good number of tourists, visitors and locals.
“We are delighted to host three games of the Drua’s six home games,” he said.
“The first thing we did was removing the old turf, bought ground seats from New Zealand and putting in a whole new turf with underground drainage and sprinklers. New goalposts have also being brought in to suit the new turf.
“World Rugby has inspected the grounds and has given us the green light.”
Khan said the new additions include the coaches’ boxes while the enclosed media boxes would be installed after the Crusaders game.
The washrooms are having a facelift with new tiles fitted in plus fittings and partitions.
Visiting team’s dressing rooms now have new and extra ice baths according to Super Rugby standards.
“There’s a new canteen beside the referees’ room now, to control movement of people. This leaves more space behind the stadium for players and officials; there’s less interaction with the public,” he said Fijian Drua head of Commercial and Marketing Shane Hussein commended the upgrade works undertaken by LCC. “The coaches’ boxes in the main pavilion look fantastic. The coaching staff of both teams will be particularly happy with that. Work done by the council is absolutely a wonderful job,” Hussein said. “They’ve created direct access to the corporate suite next to the Tappoo City Mall. “There’s now direct access from the mall to the corporate boxes, this is a plus for corporate seat holders.
Hussein said the semi-permanent stand coming up next to the concrete grandstand is a 1300 seater stand with bucket seats. The