Holo-Player System© Hailed as a Success by Wales

Michael Owen was not actually at the ground on Saturday – he and several other players were being holographically projected onto the playing surface at Twickenham using patented software and hardware that the WRU has commissioned over the last 4 years.

Along with the new technologies used in the development and design of the new shirts, new body armour and climate-control sub-kits, this Holo-Player System© is designed to reduce the impact damage on players allowing them to train harder and avoid injury. The system uses a combination of hi-tech Wii-style controllers and CGI computer software to produce a realistic 3D projection of a player who can be many miles away from the action. Although giving a life-like appearance of players being actually on the pitch, problems were experienced by Team Wales on Saturday as upload speeds mean that, over 4 miles away from the ‘targetSurface’, a time delay occurs giving the embarrassing impression of players appearing to react too late to what is happening. On Saturday, the Team-Wales-Upload-Role-Play-Site (TWURPS) was back in The Vale Hotel in South Wales and the coaching staff now realise this is too far away from the RealWorldContactZone for effective Holo-Play©.

‘We learnt some positives from the stats and statistics of Saturday’s efforts and we can only move forward with the positives that we can learn from this.’ Said a relatively up-beat Gareth Jenkins on Saturday after the Twickenham nightmare.

‘Our position has always been clear on this, the players enjoyed the experience and, while we were disappointed with the scoreboard, obviously, feel we have a better idea of where we are on the learning curve building as we are towards the ‘real’ games of the World Cup in France in September.’

‘The technologies and strategies we used will give us lot of information that we can use now to target certain areas and make those improvements that we need to in the course of the next few weeks.'

The Welsh Coach went on to praise the efforts of the technology support team saying, ‘the HoloPlayer technology means that those players (five of Saturday’s beaten pack) have had no adverse effects to the game – have no tiredness as they weren’t really there – and so will be able to train today. The technology is so good that they look like they are really there but they are only projections of real players and so don’t actually have any impact or soft-tissue damage.’

Nigel Davies, backs coach added, ‘we asked if any of the backs wanted to try out the new (Holo-Player Technology) stuff but they didn’t want to. There is still some old-fashioned resistance to this in the Welsh game. It is something we have to convince the players of the benefits of only having a virtual presence on the field. It will allow recovery times to be reduced dramatically and will allow us to select from a full squad without the problems of unnecessary injuries.’

Both coaches were however angered by questions as to the value of the technology if it meant that there were no real players on the pitch to tackle, catch, run or pass and left the briefing, refusing to accept further questions from the press.

with thanks to C Finn for technical expertise; R Williams for stats and statistics