Gregan: Smart ball can be really helpful for rugby-viewing experience
SMART BALL: George Gregan says it’s real time data around the length of kick, speed and length of pass, and accuracy
The Test rugby-viewing experience is set to go up a level when the Autumn Nations Series kicks off across Europe this afternoon with the introduction of smart ball technology to provide coaches, players and supporters with real-time data.
If this sounds like another dose of information overload about to descend on armchair sports fans already weary of VAR, xG and the like in football’s Premier League, scrum-half legend George Gregan is here to soothe potentially furrowed brows for the former Wallaby has seen at first-hand how helpful this technology can be at all levels of the viewing experience.
The Gilbert balls on display at Aviva Stadium this evening when Ireland meet South Africa may look like the ones we have seen Johnny Sexton fire between the uprights for more than a decade but the software technology inside them developed by Sage in partnership with Six Nations is a game-changer, Gregan believes and it is here to stay with a deal announced this week to use them in all the November internationals and in both the men’s and women’s Six Nations championships.
Gregan helped put the smart ball through its paces alongside Tommy Bowe, Maggie Alphonso, and Sam Warburton under the eye of coach for the day Paul Grayson recently and came away from the experience enthusiastic for its potential.
“We did a really good session. It’s real-time data around the length of the kick, speed of the pass, length of the pass and the accuracy.
“Sometimes you can get bombarded with data but this real-time data which comes from the ball in terms of the strike and I think there are things you’ll be able to learn as a commentator but also for the viewers at home where, okay, you talk about field position and kicking accuracy, here’s a great example, here’s why Conor Murray’s box kicks are better than so and so’s.
“Here’s why they dominate the territory, here’s the accuracy of passing, a kicking comparison of nine-10s, what makes them a special combination, is it the width of their pass, the speed of their pass, the depth how they can vary that and what does that do for time and space. So you’ll be able to have some really nice narratives around that.
“I’m getting really excited just speaking about nines and 10s let alone the accuracy of the lineout thrower, the height of the jump, you’ll be able to do all those things but particularly for kickers.
“From a coaches’ perspective it’s coaches’ gold dust really. It gives them real-time data which they can feed back to their players and the players can learn from it.”Â
For a player with 139 Test appearances, the Australian, now 49, said he would have appreciated having that kind of data available to him, though he admitted he would be selective.
“Well, I would have picked out what’s important. It’s funny, I don’t like too much but there’s some good swing thoughts or some good passing thoughts or coaching points which are really informative.
“Paul Grayson was like our coach yesterday and he did a lot of work with Gilbert to design the ball over the last five years. He said this would have been great data in terms of the speed and accuracy of the pass, what your numbers were like, say how passes are you throwing in a game. In our pomp I would have been throwing over 100 passes a game and what would you do in practice, so every rep you want to be deliberate. You want to hit your target with different types of passes, you could have some real fun with it.
“But it always comes back to feel, in all sports. The data’s great but then the really good coaches will use their eyes and the good players will get the feel of what, you know, that 45-metre kick with that hang time, what does that feel like and when you get yourself into that position it becomes a bit of muscle memory. But no, a really good coaching tool and I would have loved it back in my time.”Â
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