Saracens are the masters of innovation, a trait that has often irritated the more conservative elements within the sport, but their latest venture is one that every major club and union is watching closely. If the artificial pitch at Allianz Park, their new stadium in north London, proves fit for purpose as a rugby surface, it is likely to herald a new era for the sport – an era without mud.

On Sunday we will be given our first glimpse. Saracens are using their LV Cup tie with Cardiff Blues as a test event, to be played in front of a crowd of 3,500, before the official opening of the 10,000-seat stadium on 16 February, when Exeter visit in the Premiership.

What makes it all so intriguing is that no one has ever seen a proper game of rugby played on such a surface. Fourteen NFL clubs use the same type, but American football does not have scrums or line-outs or a culture of rubbing an opponent's face in the mud. Rubbing someone's face in the composite rubber crumb may or may not offend Health and Safety.

Saracens on Monday welcomed the media and representatives from other clubs to view the new surface. In the end, the weather was perfect for showing off just what this grass could do. A snowplough made quick work of the white stuff, to reveal something not unlike those perfect early-season pitches. Not much will render this pitch unplayable. The rain drains through it almost as it falls, and it can handle frosts down to -20C.

"We're very confident that for rugby this is a step forward," said Ed Griffiths, Saracens' chief executive. "It will encourage a faster, safer and more entertaining game of rugby. We've played on winter pitches where there has been not one blade of grass – look at Biarritz against Harlequins last weekend. I can't think that's good for rugby. The technology is right now. Hockey has been transformed by artificial surfaces, and I think there is a potential for rugby to be."

The technological advances that move this surface on from the kind that many clubs already train upon – and make it almost entirely unrelated to the type that gave artificial pitches a bad name in the 1980s – are the introduction of shock pads and a longer, softer type of "fibre-grass", or yarn, as they call it.

Certainly the turf has plenty of give, courtesy of that underlying layer of pads – more than you would expect from a grass pitch in summer. With players coming down from on high off line-outs, this aspect has been rigorously tested. The "grass" is soft, but the crumbs of loose rubber between, which is what we must use for mud now, will not make up so inviting a surface for Chris Ashton to swallow-dive on.

There are two main concerns. The first one is how real, live scrummaging will go. Will the glue between the rolls of "carpet" hold, for example? But the other is the effect of impact "burns". Such abrasions are well known to anyone who has played on hard grounds at the beginning or end of summer, but to deal with them every week throughout a season is a new dynamic. Saracens acknowledge that these will occur – although not as badly as on summer grass – but they insist that with the right treatment of surface and wound they can be managed.

They expect there to be teething problems and complaints from opposition, but, whether or not this latest generation of pitch proves to be the one, they are taking the first bold step into the future. Already they are trying to negotiate a deal with the council that will allow them to boost the stadium's capacity to 15,000 for their Heineken Cup quarter-final against Ulster in April. But, for the rest of this season and beyond, Saracens' home matches are to become a kind of experiment. The world will be watching.