‘Home turf' will have special meaning for the Tauranga Boys' College hockey players who have spent their summer holidays helping to install the new blue all-weather turf on the school's hockey pitch.

They are nearing the completion of a unique summer job, with completion looking at mid next week, says project installer Dean Snelgrove from Tiger Turf.

'All our labourers on-site are students and hockey players themselves, which is good as they have a vested interest in doing a good job,” says Dean.

'And they will get the ultimate satisfaction of being able to play on a turf that they helped install come the end of it.

'We are grateful to them. They have given up their school holidays to help us out, and there has been a lot of fine weather when I'm sure they would rather have been at the beach, but they have been slogging away on turf.”

He thinks a lot of their pay is destined to be spent of hockey-related costs, fees and trips away etc.

The completion date is weather dependent. It needs to be dry for the glue to the rubber underlay to take, and it can't be too windy. The sheets of carpet 60m by 7.5m are not so easy to roll out if the wind catches them, says Dean.

The product is Wet Pro, an international standard wet pitch that replaces the previous sand-based turf, which is 13-14 years old.

The college doesn't have the irrigation system set up, but the turf will play fine without it, says Dean.

Rolls of the old green turf can be purchased from the college's business development manager.

Tiger Turf Salesman Adam Cherie says the new turf's cost is about $280,000.

The first game is expected to be an exhibition match. Tiger Turf has several employees who are former and current Black Sticks, and they have close associations with Midlands Hockey, says Adam.

He understand the college also has good hockey contacts and is looking forward to a fun, friendly match.

'From the board's perspective it's been a 10-year plan to replace the turf to have something just that commitment to have something decent for the boys and the community as well,” says Tauranga Boys' College Board of Trustees chairman Richard Craven.

'It's probably a quarter of a million dollar project the board's been planning well for.”

It's a community asset, says Richard.

'We are really open to sharing with clubs' junior programmes, club programmes. It's the best hockey facility in the region so we are certainly up for sharing it.”

They chose the blue colour for the visual effect and awarded the contract to Tiger Turf because they installed the previous turf, which has been absolutely problem-free, says Richard.