The opportunities to learn and grow within the sports turf industry were on full display prior to the State of Origin clash between Queensland and New South Wales recently with an apprentice at Pambula Merimbula Golf Club making the most of his chance to volunteer at the world-class facility.

Rory McAlpin (pictured right), an apprentice greenkeeper at the Sapphire Coast-based golf course, assisted the grounds staff to prepare the Accor Stadium field in Sydney for game three of the State of Origin series on July 9. The 21-year-old, in his third year as an apprentice after first getting a taste of the sports turf management industry as a teenager in high school at Pambula Merimbula, said he thoroughly enjoyed seeing how a world-class stadium’s turf team operates prior to and on game-day.

“It was a good experience for me to see another side of the turf industry, it was great,” he said. We did an excursion up there a few weeks ago, touring the stadium and sussing it all out and then Accor Stadium grounds manager Joel Toogood floated the idea for me to go and see what the stadium preparation was like and we got in contact and went up for the weekend.

“They were happy enough for me to come and join the crew and help out with preparation of the field for the Origin which was pretty cool. It was interesting to see the process of marking out the fields, that kind of stuff and what they do right up to the kick-off and what that sort of looks like on the ground.”

McAlpin, who said he was open to any opportunities to improve his craft in the industry whether through golf tournament or sports field event experience, assisted the crew to get the surface into pristine condition for the two teams to battle it out.

“We spent most of the day marking out the field, it was getting mown while we were doing that. We did a bit of divoting in the afternoon and then sort of sat and watched the curtain-raiser game and then went onto the field after the pre-game entertainment and tidied up the field,” he said.

Queensland went on to comfortably win the decider 24-12 after previous matches at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane on May 28 and Optus Stadium in Perth on June 18. Tom Dearden capped off a magical series by winning the Wally Lewis Medal as player of the series for the Maroons.

Story by Nick Creely/Pictures courtesy of Pambula Merimbula GC