Sydney Swan Adam Goodes wearing one of the GPS
devices.
Photo courtesy of the West Coast Eagles

Global Satellite Systems technology has become a key weapon in the quest by Australian Rules Football clubs to gain the incremental edge that could be the difference between winning and losing a match.

As Eagles sports science manager Glenn Stewart attests, science is vital to success in any elite sport and, in international terms, AFL is at the cutting-edge.

“Part of my job is to assess the world’s best practices in sports technology from America, Europe and the UK, and it is clear that Australian sport and AFL, in particular, are leading the world,” he says.

“This is because soccer and American football, for instance, have huge reserves of players. If a player gets injured they can be cast aide and a replacement found easily enough. In Australia, we have a much smaller pool of talent. You can’t just go out and get another Chris Judd; you have to look after the one you’ve got.”

From nutrition through to recovery, the players are measured, monitored and tested at every session. The SPI 10, invented by Canberra-based GPSports Australia, is about the size of a mobile phone and sits between a footballer’s shoulder blades to track his speed, direction, altitude, position and heart rate. It provides new data every second, which is then analysed by special software.

Before GPS, coaches could track only one player at a time by videoing him and then counting his strides and the time he stood still.

“We use GPS in training to analyse if their work load is too hard, too light, and to prevent burn-out,” Mr Stewart says. “We are better than we were at assessing players and making decisions more objectively and at helping them recover from injury. It is essential in matches, though AFL rules mean only ten players at a time can wear one.”

Usually, he says, it’s about slowing players down rather than trying to spot if they are slacking off. “Players don’t want to come off the field. If they come off, then someone else will come on and might do really well and threaten their spot. We have to, in a sense, protect them from themselves. They are our single greatest asset. These players are expensive and if a good player can’t play because of injury it could be costing the club $20,000 a game.”

He says the next evolution of the GPS device will see it reduced to the size of a bandaid and producing five data points a second rather than one. Considering players run up to 20km – the equivalent of a half-marathon – every game and risk head, neck, shoulder, groin or knee injuries, monitoring is essential.

Also commonly used by the Eagles are chip-filled pills which, when swallowed, report the body’s core body temperature wirelessly using short-wave radio technology. Essential, says Mr Stewart, now that such a physical game is played increasingly on hot days.

But it is not only the players but the support staff who work up a sweat, especially during matches.

“One of the most amazing things is the amount of data that comes into the coach’s box during a game,” Mr Stewart says. “The bank of computers is like something out of NASA. In all, 125 different statistical measurements come in every second, plus visions from the sides, centre and behind the goals. Plus delayed vision on a 20-second loop. And all of this is being analysed constantly by the coaches and support staff.

“Where technology is heading is using everything behind the scenes to make the 22 players on the field just have an edge over their opponents. And when you think that the 2006 grand final was won (by the Eagles) by one point, who knows how important that contribution from science is?”