Let me start off by saying how pleased I was to see Wales win their 3rd consecutive game of the 6 Nations championship, meaning the Grand Slam is currently theirs - and only theirs for the loosing - not, as the BBC might have you think, for England to win! 

Anyway, this aside, it was a great game. I do however, have a question. What exactly is being displayed on the 2 Macbook’s and 1 MacBook Pro the Welsh Management team use? Granted, today’s commentary team eluded to it being related to information coming in from spotters around the ground. But, what information is it exactly? And how is the information transformed into meaningful data for management to make decisions?

I can understand how data gathered in the first-half might enable decisions to be made as the first-half draws to a close. I can see how those might then be aired during the half-time period and put into action during the second-half. But during the second half, how do those fluid instructions get revised and passed to the team on the field to put into action?

Out of curiosity I’d really like to know what the architecture/infrastructure, hardware/software schema is to make all this work. What information do the spotters look for? How do they capture the information? How do they relay information to the machines with the management team? How secure is the connection? Can it be infiltrated? Is it a two-way conversation between management and the spotters? Are the spotters just watching the Welsh team? How many spotters are there? Do they stay in the same seat throughout the game? What about away games; how does the spotter/seating arrangement work then? Who makes the decision about what is good information and what is bad? Is this automated or manual? If it’s manual, why is this system better than a traditional walkie-talkie arrangement?

Back in the days when I worked on F1Circle, I remember the information was starting to become available about how teams such as McLaren, Ferrari and Jordan were able to capture real-time information fed back from the cars. These were Java developed applications (presumably, because of the Sun Microsystems relationship) which meant questions could be asked, from the pit lane, of the onboard computers, transmitted to the car, answered, transmitted back to the pit-lane (and onward to Woking), run through pre-analysis software and made available to the pit-wall/engineers within a 4 second window. Now, for an engineering based sport - running at in excess of 170mph I can see the immediate benefit this technology can provide. Right now I’m not entirely sure I can see the benefit when it comes to Rugby.

Don’t get me wrong. I’d be happy to be proven wrong and at this stage my cynicism is probably based on ignorance rather than anything else. Let’s not forget at heart I am a technologist and I live my life by growing accustomed to change. 

I’d really like to see the software which is used. Is it commercially available? Was it developed by the WRU? Why on a Mac? Or, is it Java based and they choose to use Mac’s? Is it more than the spotter information coming through?

Presumably, like an F1 car it might (at least theoretically) be possible to read information from sensors attached to players about heart-rate, lung-capacity etc…. thereby being able to accurately assess a players current physical and/or fitness state? If this information is not currently being used, when it does start being used it would give an unfair advantage  to the first team to use it - at least until the others caught up? Will/would this ever happen? I think it might and I think it might happen within a year or three.

Can you tell me any more or let me see anything more about this. This kind of software could be fascinating. Infact, the more I think about the implications of the last paragraph the more I can see the expansion of this technology into other fields of sport.