Paul McGinn explains how Hibs will cope with Alloa's plastic pitch

Paul McGinn has no qualms about playing on Alloa's plastic pitch

The artificial surface has it critics, and former Hibs striker Farid El Alagui suffered a serious injury on the Recreation Park turf but with more and more clubs opting to go down a grassless route for financial reasons, the right-back doesn’t believe it’s as much of an issue as it once was.

McGinn said: “The plastic pitch isn’t an issue – I actually don’t mind it, to be honest, because you do know where the ball’s going to roll.

"It rolls a bit faster than on grass, but it’s not going to bobble up much.

“I would much rather that than the real sand dunes you used to get on some of the pitches.

“When I was at Queen’s Park as a youngster it was always astros we were training on, so it’s something I’m well used to personally."

Hibs have already payed several times on artificial turf already this season with Cove Rangers, Forfar Athletic, Kilmarnock, Livingston, and Hamilton all using synthetic surfaces.

However, it can still cause unusual difficulties, according to McGinn.

“There was an incident against Hamilton where I managed to actually stand on the ball, and that’s not really something you can do on grass.

“It’s just one of those things where it is maybe a bit faster and the ball maybe bounces a bit higher but we have somewhere at the training centre where we can go onto the astro and get used to it in the lead-up to the game.”

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