What Rotherham United manager Matt Taylor had to say about the abandonment of his side's Championship fixture with Cardiff City

The players left the pitch on the orders of referee Oliver Langford in the 48th minute after the heavens had opened in a short, but heavily intense deluge which saturated parts of the surface and perimeter.

Rotherham and Cardiff players entered into discussions with match officials as the rain started to relent, with standing water having soaked areas of the pitch with the areas close to the touchline being hit particularly badly.

Once the rain eased, ground staff started to attend to the pitch with main problem areas being on the perimeter of the pitch at either side and in front of the Mears Stand, which was under several inches of surface water.

A first pitch inspection took place with Rotherham manager Matt Taylor and Cardiff counterpart Sabri Lamouchi present alongside Langford ahead of a second look at 4.45pm.

The news was relayed that the game was abandoned at shortly before 5pm, following consultation with the EFL.

Cardiff were winning 1-0 in the relegation six-pointer, thanks to an early goal from Jaden Philogene.

While Lamouchi ultimatelt agreed with the decision, Taylor said that his Cardiff counterpart felt that ground staff could have started work on some of the problem areas quicker.

But Taylor said the state of the surface - not just on the sides of the pitch but in the middle also - made the postponement inevitable on safety grounds.

He said: "You sweep one corner and the other gets left and the water was all around the edges. But it was still unplayable in the middle, which is the biggest aspect of it in relation to the referee.

"The ball wasn’t travelling and if it was in the air, it landed and stopped. There were pools of water around the side, but in the middle, there were a few inches.”

Insisting both managers were in agreement at the abandonment, he added: "Yes. The only disappointment the Cardiff manager had was that we didn’t try earlier.

"But if pitch wasn’t playable, 15 minutes later it wasn’t playable. If we’d have tried (earlier), it would have been chaos. It would have been how the game finished in that last minute or so.

"I understand and sympathise with their journey and fans and everyone involved with Cardiff. It won’t make them feel any better but I once went from Exeter to Barrow, all the way and the side of the pitch was frozen.

"So I have a little bit of an idea how it does feel. Sometimes, there is nothing you can do about the weather."

Ahead of the deluge, which suddenly started just a few minutes before the second half was due to resume, the pitch was being sprinkled, further adding to the bizarre and freak nature of events after.

Taylor said: "The sprinklers were on because the pitch has been in good nick and had the covers on it for a few days when the snow was there. Generally, we want a slick surface with a bit of moisture on top. But in the second half, the water just stood up on the surface."

Admitting he has never seen freak weather conditions like at the start of the second half, he continued: “I was so busy at half time getting some tactical information to the group that it was one of the coaches came in and said ‘have the players checked their footwear” that I knew it had started to rain. I did not know it had rained that hard.

"We went out in the second half and it was incredible for the middle of March and incredible that it wasn’t forecast.

"Within minutes of the second half being under way, the referee made the right decision to take us off the pitch. It was only a matter of time. From walking out there, we were soaked within two minutes and all of a sudden, we were back in the changing room and then it is a race against time to see if the pitch could improve.

"The pitch became unplayable and then it is a case of when it becomes playable and what state the players are in when it becomes playable.

"If we went back out there in two hours, you could say that’s fine, but the players are then in a position of risk. Not just our players, but the opposition as well.

"Not from so much of the pitch itself, but from cooling down and warming up again. There’s a bigger picture that had to be looked at."