Monday 12 October 2015 16:52, UK
Newcastle United are confident their St James' Park pitch will be in "fantastic" condition when they host Norwich City in the Premier League on Sunday.
Since the Magpies last staged a home game on September 26, the stadium has been used for three rugby union matches during the on-going Rugby World Cup.
The last of these was Scotland's fixture with Samoa over the weekend, but the club have said that deputy head groundsman Andrew Tully, and his colleagues, will ensure that the surface will be in decent shape before the Canaries travel to the north-east.
Tully told the club's official website: "It's good, considering everything we expected from the rugby.
"At the end of the day it's a football pitch - not a rugby one - and we are in the process of a quick turnaround to get it ready for football again at the weekend.
"You've got the rugby markings and a bit of damage from the games, which is what we knew would happen and we will tend to it throughout the week.
"We worked pretty late through the double-header, that was always going to be the case. Two games in two days of any sport is a lot for a pitch to take. It's just general wear in high-traffic areas that we really have to tend to.
"By Sunday it will be looking fantastic."
Tully revealed that ground staff had been kept busy during the rugby games tending to the playing surface.
He added: "It's best that we were going on during the games, instead of rugby players stamping on divots, putting them back in upside down or anything like that.
"We were going on, tending to them properly and putting them back in the right way up, so they had more of a chance to recover."
