Sports stats enter new hi-tech era

SIMON SCHLUTER/The Age

WORLD FIRST: GPS units like this will allow AFL fans watching TV to see amazing detail on how far and fast they move, and even what rate their heart is beating.

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Aussie rules fans are about to gain a whole new insight into what is happening on the field, with hi-tech statistics on players actions set to be broadcast live during televised games.

The hits in tomorrow night's Collingwood-Brisbane AFL match will literally flow all the way to fans in their lounge rooms, with GPS technology transmitting the impacts of players live to the TV screen.

In a world first, Australia's Channel Ten will download data taken from GPS devices attached to 10 players during Friday night's Collingwood-Brisbane AFL match and provide viewers with detail on G forces, impacts, speed, acceleration, heart rate and distances run.

AFL players have been wearing the small transponder type instruments in games for four years, providing coaches with valuable information, but the material has not been transmitted to the public until now.

AFL players regularly run up to 20 kilometres in a game and some reach speeds of 34kmh, meaning fans will see evidence athletes accelerate like 100-metre sprinters, run like marathoners and absorb hits like boxers.

David Barham, Network Ten's executive producer of AFL, says: "It's an important night for sport generally, the AFL and the clubs who have desperately wanted to use it live in games.

"Hopefully, we can demonstrate it can be used safely and make it as simple and practical for the fans as possible."

Essendon fitness coach John Quinn, coach of Olympic sprinter Lauren Hewitt, will be in the Ten studio to explain the information downloaded from the GPS devices worn by five players each from Collingwood and Brisbane.

"He will be the expert on the night," Barham said. "We're not going to blind fans with science but I'm thinking of putting up on the screen the heart rate of one player for a minute following the centre bounce."

The device will be worn in a vest, or strapped to the player's back.

The NRL, where the collisions are more violent, and the appeal to viewers potentially greater, has not given permission for GPS to be used in games, fearing injury when a player is back-slammed, or falls heavily.

Manly and Melbourne, leaders on the premiership ladder and in technology, have been using GPS technology as a training aid to track workloads and determine whether injured players are fit to resume.

Manly monitor every training session and get instant data on total workload, exertion, impacts, sprint efforts, heart rates, acceleration, speed and distance.

Coach Des Hasler says, "I've been using it for years. It's a great thing for injury prevention and telling us how far we need to run at training."

Geelong credit their top of the AFL ladder position on changes in training brought by a former Manly assistant, Dean Robinson.

Robinson has used GPS technology and strength training to make the Cats stronger in the upper body.

The improved strength of Geelong players in the shoulders and arms has manifested itself in better tackling and ball control.

Other AFL teams reporting dramatic improvement since using GPS data include Sydney, Adelaide and West Coast.

The Crusaders, who have dominated Super 14 rugby, the All Blacks and A-League football champions Melbourne Victory all use GPS technology.

The GPS devices worn in the Collingwood-Brisbane match update data 100 times a second.

Channel Ten will be able to analyse player match-ups on rolling time periods and provide explanations for interchange.

The laws of physics suggest that with players getting bigger and faster, impacts are even more devastating. Old footballers contend this is no more valid than the notion greater amps automatically lead to better songs.

Former players argue they don't make hits like they used to but GPS technology means we now have a Richter scale for comparison.

One of AFL's most absorbing match-ups occurred in a Collingwood-Brisbane game when Magpies captain Nathan Buckley and Lions skipper Michael Voss went at each other furiously in the final quarter of the 2002 grand final.

While some fans might argue viewing the statistics of that battle would suck all the romance from it, Barham recognises we live in an information age and viewers demand detail, even if they choose to discard it.

In football, as in music, hits succeed because of the impression they leave.

Fans now have a means to measure them and coaches have tangible evidence of what they suspect when they say, "That game took a lot out of the lads."

- © Fairfax NZ News