Magazine - Not Just a School

St Joseph's College prides itself on providing students with a well-rounded, balanced education, focusing on boys' academic, physical, social, spiritual and recreation needs. The school possesses a rich and proud history dating from 1881, with many notable ‘Old Boys’ including fifty plus Australian Wallabies, numerous state/provincial Rugby Union players, several Rugby League players and various international test cricketers.

Grounds Manager Bill Rawling is responsible for the maintenance of the high quality grounds and facilities, and has been so for the past 22 years with overwhelming success. The school’s first class grounds and facilities include eight rugby fields, two football pitches, eight high-quality hard tennis courts, indoor and outdoor basketball courts, eight turf and six artificial cricket wickets (along with numerous cricket training nets), swimming pool, fully drained 400 meter running track, a well-equipped rowing shed, weights and cardio gymnasiums, five acres of garden and approximately two acres of general lawn. Along with 45 Rugby teams, 12 Football teams and 13 Cricket teams, Bill and his staff possess the large challenge to produce high quality training and match day surfaces each week for the boys at St Joseph’s.

St Joseph’s isn’t the first school Bill has been involved with in his career. He was employed by Newington Collage for five years before he came to St Joseph’s but originally came from a greenkeeping background which began in 1968. He describes the transition from Castle Hill Country Club as a greenkeeper, to a groundsman at Newington Collage as ‘Amazing’. “To walk from a golf green to a cricket wicket, I just couldn’t believe that turf could possibly grow on such a hard, barren surface. It was quite a shock!” Bill maintains that after 27 years of cricket wicket preparation he’s still learning and will continue to learn for years to come. He is well respected in the turf industry, with many complimenting his turf management regimes and practices. From the very beginning of the interview it was very evident that Bill’s passion and amicable character is indisputable, which fits in well with the school’s community spirit and sense of belonging.

Bill has five staff at his disposal comprising of one gardener and four groundsmen. His 2IC Travis Farnell, is fully qualified and was awarded the ‘Best Effort in Sports Fields’ at Ryde TAFE in Sydney, consequently he was quite a wanted man in the industry but with a review of his salary and a rise in his responsibilities, Bill was able to secure him at St Joseph’s. One other groundsman at St Joseph’s is currently undergoing his second year of TAFE, and thus far doing very well. When employing new staff Bill looks for certain qualities which enable an easy transition into his working environment. A high level of maturity and a good attitude are only a few of the qualities he looks for in potential employees; throughout his career he has found that an older, more mature student is preferred rather than a young apprentice.

Many tasks come under Bill’s responsibility including the maintenance of all the trees within the schools grounds to Occupational Health and Safety standards, with any major pruning or climbing that is required carried out by contractors. Cleaning of the hard tennis courts is also another job which is carried out by contractors seasonally with a power washer. During the cricket season from September through to March, two employees are allocated to cricket wicket preparation five days a week due to the extensive use training and match day wicket tables. The Rugby and Football season runs from April through to September with eight Rugby fields and two soccer fields requiring weekly line marking, which is a two man operation. No line is traced with every line marked using strings to produce the straightest possible lines, whilst Primo Maxx is also mixed into the line marking paint to retard growth which increases ease and efficiency of the process week after week. Bill organises each employee’s day so they have a variety of jobs with rarely any employee doing the same job all day. “I work their day so that every employee does five or six different jobs a day, then maybe in the afternoon two guys will go and mark two footy fields. This keeps the boys interested whilst they gain experience in a variety of jobs”.

The two main grasses within the school grounds are couch ‘Santa Ana’ and Kikuyu, with the majority of rugby fields and football pitches also oversown with a ryegrass. “I’ve had a go at all the different varieties of rye over the years with success and failure. But at the moment I’m using ‘Arena’ ryegrass which is going well”. The Arena is seeded with a Speedseed which works well on the Kikuyu without scarification but due to the high level of thatch in the Santa Ana couch, scarification is needed to create a seed bed before using the Speedseed. Sixty tonnes of sand is then applied using a spreader to ensure a good seed/soil contact. On the topic of couch ‘Santa Ana’ Bill said, “Santa Ana is a great rugby grass! If you were to get tackled out there now you would think you were on a feather bed”. Many people in the industry question the value of Santa Ana due to the amount of thatch build up, along with other various factors. One such person was Geoff Hattin, managing director of ‘Sustainable Turf Renovations and Equipment’. In a separate interview Geoff was also asked about Santa Ana, he stated “I originally thought Santa Ana was a terrible grass but when I saw Bill Rawling and his Santa Ana, I changed my tune very quickly-and this was at the end of June! He’s got a great management plan for Santa Ana and it shows”. Due to the recognised success Bill has had with Santa Ana, other groundsmen have tried to emulate his techniques and management plan to produce similar results, validating Bill’s high regard in the industry.

During the rugby and football season the fields and pitches are cut once a week at a height of 32mm, whilst in the cricket season the outfields are cut three times a week at a height of 15mm. Generally, the height of rugby fields vary between 32mm and 40mm along with football pitches varying between a height of 25mm and 27mm. Bill needed to agree on a height of cut which could suit both the surfaces. “We’ve decided that 32mm is the height for us where we don’t get any negative feedback from football or rugby divisions”. The profile of the main field within the school grounds is a sand-link profile as opposed to a full sand profile. Bill said the sand-link profile is an ‘oldie but a goodie’ which is backed up by the remarkable fact that all football and rugby training sessions and matches undertaken on the main field, are never called off regardless of the weather conditions. In the north/south direction seven kilometres of geotextile drainage runs one meter apart across the entire main field, with sand grooving undertaken in the east/west direction via a contractor. The sand grooving is carried out at 200mm increments, 200mm in depth and 20mm in width. 200 tonnes of drainage sand then fills the narrow channels, followed by a sand carpet over the top of the sand grooving. With the sand-link profile Bill able to maintain the colour of the couch with any nutrients applied to the surface residing in the profile, rather than being leached out like in a full sand profile. “As far as I’m concerned this sand link profile is better, easier and cheaper than a full sand profile”.   

Every time the St Joseph’s boys go on holidays Bill is inclined renovate the turf playing surfaces, which is four times a year. The type of renovation undertaken depends greatly on the time of year and the amount of growth. During the cooler period he will tend to use a machine such as a Verti-Drain which cause minimal disturbance to the surface. He said, “Once a year I’ll hire a contractor to come out and Verti-Drain the turf, we don’t have that sort of equipment in our shed because it’s just not worth it for us”. Come spring when the growth rate increases de-thatching machines are used to remove thatch and create the surface disturbance Bill is seeking. The majority of the preventive spraying is also carried out on the school holidays with the exception of a fungicide preventative spray, which is carefully undertaken on a day where the site is segregated from the school and the public. Bill said, “With all of our insecticides, weedicide and pesticides done when the school boys are on break, we minimizing most issues. We’re pretty lucky in that way”. One disease of the few diseases which is sprayed preventatively for is Black Helminthosporium fungus which occurs mostly on the cricket wickets. This process occurs monthly during the cricket season and has proven to be a major success. “The preventative spraying for the Black Helmo has been great especially when we’ve had lots of rain. I’m very pleased with it!” Bill minimizes the amount of preventative spraying by maintaining his turf in a good healthy condition, so the grass itself can fight against fungus and diseases as much as possible. “Conditions will change and the grass will need help, on those days... I’ll go out and spray”. 

The grounds at St Joseph’s are fully irrigated with a Rain Bird irrigation system and controlled with a remote control Cloudmaster system.  A few changes have been made to the system during Bill’s time at the school, which included the replacement of the original irrigation heads with Hunter I-41 Rotor sprinklers and the installation of an 80,000 litre water tank underneath one of the soccer fields, in addition to the 110,000 litre rain water tank behind the pavilion. Water for irrigation is bought weekly every Monday with the water tanks acting as backup when the weather is unfavourably hot. Water restrictions only allowed the grounds to be watered on a Monday night, but Bill convinced the Sydney Water Board to allow him to water the fields on a Thursday night to soften the turf before all of Saturday’s matches, hopefully minimizing the amount of injuries sustained to the players during matches. After yearly reviews of the injuries sustained by players on match day, it was determined since the change of watering time from Monday night to Thursday night has resulted in a 30% reduction in injuries. This made everyone involved very happy, including the school nurse!

With fertilizer application, Bill maintains a down to earth approach by only giving the turf what it needs with the exception of Iron, which is used for colouring aesthetics. All of the fields are soil tested regularly and Bill reacts accordingly to the soil analysis. “I use small amounts but often, I don’t touch the modern slow release stuff”. During the drought an injection system was introduced into the irrigation system, allowing several liquid applications to be applied to the turf. Primo Maxx was used to retard the grass and shorten the leaf therefore the turf required less water, whilst wetting agents are also applied to enhance all of the bought water. “I call it Enhanced Water” Bill said. “It enabled me to maintain green healthy turf throughout the drought with the same amount of water that we’ve always had”.

The most pleasing aspect in Bill’s 22 years at St Joseph’s is the high quality of the fields he and his staff produce all year round, which possess a very high reputation throughout the industry. He also mentioned that managers in the industry have to be more responsible environmentally. “There is too must waste in the industry, especially concerning water. We all need to get better at collecting water to preserve our jobs now, and in the future”. After a long and successful career, Bill is entering the succession management stage at St Joseph’s Collage, and is optimistically leaning towards his 2IC to take over the Grounds Manager’s role when he retires in the future.

On behalf of Pitchcare Oceania, we highly commend Bill’s input to the Australian turf industry and wish him all the best for the future.