Manly-Warringah RLFC’s successful trip to the UK in the last few weeks, which saw them beat Leeds for the World Club Challenge, was assisted by an interesting piece of technology. All the players have been wearing networked GPS data loggers during the games, so Statto gets a live feed of data on precisely where they move, how fast, and what they’re doing. And just how hard they go in; there’s a three axis accelerometer in there too. It’s the work of their conditioner Dean Robinson.
Aussie clubs have been very good with statistics for years; in the 1990s, the Brits were still very impressed with themselves for counting tackles while the Aussies were looking at how you could measure the energy battle and coach to tire the other side out. But this impresses even me.
Weirdly, in a sense their team is blogging all the time it’s playing. Discussion ensues, over here. They used to say that you can smoke while playing a game but not while playing a sport, but then, the legendary French fullback Puig-Aubert used to bum fags off the fans and he was in the French World Cup winning side of 1951. It’s probably true that you can blog while playing a game, etc, but as you can see, technological change is even getting rid of that distinction.
In a surveillance society, you can be a star blogger without even noticing.