Autumn Internationals - Sportable Tech and Gilbert Match Ball

The Autumn Internationals take place this month across England. However, there's a new addition to these top class matches - the Smart Rugby Ball from Gilbert using Sportable technology.

This ball is the 'most revolutionary rugby ball' in the World and has taken 5 years of development to get it to the stage where it is being used at the highest level of the game.

'The smart rugby ball offers instant 3D tracking and trajectories at cm level accuracy.' It has been developed and tested at the Advanced Technology Innovation Centre at Loughborough University.

Using Skill Tracker, coaches and players and now the spectators will be able to find out how fast the ball is travelling, the direction, how much it is moving through the air via spin and how far it goes. There are wireless beacons around the pitch to gather the information.

The ball will also be in use during the men's Six Nations and the TikTok Women's Six Nations Championships.

How does it work?

As Gilbert is a part of Grays TeamSports we hope that this technology can be rolled out to their other sports - netball, hockey and cricket as well.

Did you know: William Gilbert first supplied rugby balls to Rugby School, where the game was invented in 1823. Gilbert is still the go to ball brand for rugby teams across the world!

Thank you to Grays TeamSports and Sportable for the information in this article.