RODNEY Parade hosts its 55th and final competitive match of the season on Saturday and work to improve the playing surface will begin on May 9.

Newport RFC have already completed their 16 home fixtures and Newport Gwent Dragons their 13 and this weekend’s visit of Notts County will be number 26 out of 26 for Newport County AFC.

And, after various charity matches and the Newport & District rugby cup final, Rodney Parade head of operations Mark Jones will oversee a £30,000 renovation of the pitch.

Once that is complete the plan is to introduce a 3G surface for the perimeter of the pitch and at the entrance to the changing room area at a cost of around £50,000.

It is hoped that the work will help to avoid the issues that have led to several postponements this winter, although Jones says poor weather and the fact that three teams use the pitch will still make life difficult.

“It has been a long season,” said Jones. “This one has been harder than the season when we had only half the field drained because I predicted that season that we’d hit a wall and have games called off.

“This season was a lot harder to predict. It was just constantly wet and we can’t work on a waterlogged surface.

“With three teams it’s not ideal and we knew it wasn’t going to be ideal when we started this a few years back.

“We would love to go with a Desso [a grass/artificial hybrid] pitch but that would cost us £950,000 so that’s not going to happen.

“It is what it is and we’ve got to make the best of it. It has been wet this year but I think we will have problems again. Sometimes you’re lucky and sometimes you’re not but I’m optimistic.”

Outlining the work that will be done, Jones said: “We’ll take the whole of the grass area off completely – the top 15 to 20mm.

“It will be Rotovated down to a depth of another four inches to break all the compacted ground down.

“And the whole lot will be reseeded after some sand banding, which is small grooves of sand running through the surface.

“That will get us back to square one. There is drainage further down and all of these little things just add to tie it all together.

“We’ll do the field, wait until we’ve had the germination and everything is green and grassy again before we do the perimeters.”

The whole process should be complete in time for County to play a home pre-season friendly at the end of July.

Jones is also working with Pro12 tournament director David Jordan and Football League fixtures officer Paul Snellgrove and hopes to have designated football weekends and rugby weekends where possible.