Coaching by satellite: the AFL's hi-tech future is within reach
Chip Le Grand
The Australian
April 07, 2007
IT is football in the technological age. Each player takes the field with a small global positioning satellite unit strapped to his back. From the first bounce, every step, heartbeat and metre covered is recorded and beamed back to the coaches' box, where a team of sports scientists monitor the numbers in real time.
Whenever a player starts to "red-line" on any given measure, he is brought to the bench and replaced by a team-mate with fresh legs, enabling the game to continue at maximum speed and intensity.
Whenever a player's output slips below an acceptable level, the runner is quickly dispatched to bark instructions in his ear.
A glimpse into a distant sporting future? Hardly.
According to GP Sports, the company that provides AFL clubs with GPS units, it is technology available from July 1.
...
The computer will be armed with a physiological profile of every player and relative benchmarks.
"You will be able to sit on the boundary line with a laptop computer and have a look at variables such as heart rate and distance covered in real time," Richmond conditioning and rehabilitation coach Warren Kofoed said.
"The theory would be that when a certain player has been in a certain heart-rate zone or covered a certain amount of distance you would take them off the ground at that time." ....
The hidden cost of the new technology is the skilled labour required to analyse the reams of data that unlimited GPS use would produce. Where some clubs, most notably Adelaide and West Coast, can afford to employ a team of sports scientists to do their number crunching,
Richmond relies on a work experience kid to process its GPS information. Another inequity associated with the technology is that it doesn't work under the closed roof of the Telstra Dome. This puts clubs such as St Kilda, the Western Bulldogs, Essendon, Carlton and the Kangaroos, who all use Telstra Dome as a home venue, at a disadvantage.
Full article at:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21516102-2722,00.html